Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

FINSBURY SQUARE BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Second Reading deferred till Thursday.

CLYDE NAVIGATION ORDER CONFIRMATION (No. 2)

Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936, relating to Clyde Navigation (to be proceeded with under Sections 8 and 9 of the Act), presented by Mr. Maclay; read the First time, and ordered (under Section 9 of the Act) to be read a Second time upon Wednesday, 17th July, and to be printed. [Bill 115.]

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

Rent Act (Advice to Tenants)

Mr. Lewis: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will arrange to broadcast on sound and television giving a factual explanation of the effect of the Rent Act with regard to the decontrolling of rents, and security of tenants.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Mr. Henry Brooke): I gave such a broadcast on Monday, 17th June, after the nine o'clock news. The broadcast was repeated on B.B.C. television the same evening.

Mr. Lewis: Is the Minister aware that since the broadcast people have been queueing up at the town halls complaining that the landlords are taking advantage of the provisions of the Act? Is he aware that in the Daily Herald this morning a number of cases are reported where

the right hon. Gentleman ought to take action against the landlords? Will he do something about that?

Mr. Brooke: No, Sir. I do not think there is any case for me to take any action, nor do I think that landlords as a whole are acting unreasonably. I have already expressed to both landlords and tenants the great importance of thinking before they act.

Mr. Chetwynd: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is widespread consternation about the operation of the Act? Will he do something more to make their safeguards known to tenants?

Mr. Brooke: The answer to the next Question will indicate what is already happening to make the safeguards known. I cannot for one moment accept what the hon. Member says.

Mr. Ede: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that those of us who are tenants are thinking and that our landlords are acting?

Mr. Lewis: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what action he proposes to take to secure wider publicity for the Government's explanatory booklet on the effects of the new Rent Act; whether he will supply a copy to each Member of Parliament or those who request one; and whether he will arrange for old-age pensioners to receive a copy free, on production of their pension books.

Mr. H. Brooke: This booklet is already being sold as fast as it can be printed, and I doubt whether wider publicity is needed to increase its sale. I have arranged for copies of both the English and the Welsh versions to be available in the Vote Office. I do not think that it is necessary to arrange for a special issue to all old-age pensioners.

Mr. Lewis: Is the Minister aware that old-age pensioners are finding that their rents are going up by between 5s. and 15s. a week, and yet they now have to pay to obtain a booklet to explain to them the intricacies of this pernicious Act? Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that he could at least assist old-age pensioners by providing them with the booklet free of charge so that they can ascertain if and when landlords are taking advantage of them under the new legislation?

Mr. Brooke: I do not think that the vast majority of old-age pensioners will have difficulty in getting hold of a copy of the booklet from their friends, if not otherwise, but if they have any difficulty, all they have to do is to go to the local citizens' advice bureau or town hall.

Mr. Mitchison: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that, having introduced a very complicated Act, the least he could do would be to let people have a free guide to it?

Mr. Brooke: No, Sir; I do not think so. I do not think I should be in favour of distributing free millions and millions of copies of something which costs money to produce.

Goole

Mr. G. Jeger: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware that the Goole Town Council has over 1,000 applications for houses, that it has ceased the building of houses except for slum clearance, and that last year only 25 council houses fell vacant; and whether he will take appropriate action, under Section 5 of the Housing Subsidies Act, 1956, to ensure that the normal housing needs of small towns are met.

Mr. H. Brooke: It is for the council to decide how many houses it will build and for what purposes, and to make application to me if it thinks it has a case for additional help under Section 5 of the Housing Subsidies Act, 1956. Goole has not applied.

Mr. Jeger: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Goole is still wondering what has hit it as a result of the Government's housing policy? Can he offer no hope whatever to the 1,000 applicants on the waiting list for council houses in Goole, and have I his authority to tell them that he can do nothing for them?

Mr. Brooke: No, Sir. It lies entirely with the Goole Council to decide how many houses it will build. I am placing no restriction on it.

Mr. Lindgren: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that, with present interest rates and no subsidies, a net rent, without rates, of 52s. 6d. to 54s. weekly makes it impossible for local authorities to build for general needs?

Mr. Brooke: Most local authorities are wise enough to adopt some kind of differential rents scheme or some other arrangement whereby they save money by not excessively subsidising existing tenants, and are thus able to reduce the rents for new houses.

Old People (Accommodation)

Mr. Parkin: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will now draw up proposals to increase contributions to housing authorities borne on the Vote of his Department towards the cost of special housing schemes for old people, in view of the rent increases permitted by the Rent Act.

Mr. H. Brooke: No, Sir. There is already a general subsidy for one-bedroom dwellings to encourage housing authorities to provide accommodation for old people.

Mr. Parkin: Bearing in mind that considerable sums of taxpayers' money will be spent through other Departments as a result of increased payments by the National Assistance Board, does the Minister consider it within his responsibility to take note of these other payments and to advise the Government whether the money is being spent less wisely that way or whether more use could be made of it through direct subsidies to local authorities for old people's housing?

Mr. Brooke: The question relates to contributions to local housing authorities and I pointed out the wisdom of the Government in having arranged that, although the general need subsidy should not remain for other houses, it should remain for the one-bedroomed house, because what we had in mind was precisely the special needs of old people for housing.

Mr. Gower: If the Government had followed the Labour Party's programme of municipal ownership of private houses, would not the increases of rent have been on a far larger scale?

Mr. Brooke: I think that is quite certain.

Housing Revenue Accounts (Loan Charges)

Mr. Mitchison: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if, for purposes of comparison, he will state, as on the latest convenient date, the annual


charges to be debited to the housing revenue account of a local authority in any convenient area in respect of a typical three-bedroom house and its services built and provided with money borrowed from the Public Works Loans Board for sixty years, and similar loan charges in respect of a similar house as on the corresponding date in each year since and including 1951.

Mr. H. Brooke: Since the Answer contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, have it circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Mitchison: Since the Answer contains seven figures, could not the Minister tell us what the first and the last are and how much rise they show in the cost of housing to local authorities?

Mr. Brooke: It would be best if I circulated the figures.

Following are the figures—


Three-bedroom council houses


First quarter in each year

Interest and repayment charges on construction, land and services



£
s.
d.


1951
…
…
…
55
0
8


1952
…
…
…
75
4
7


1953
…
…
…
74
7
0


1954
…
…
…
71
8
10


1955
…
…
…
72
10
7


1956
…
…
…
97
8
7


1957
…
…
…
100
4
6

Notes:—1. The table above is based upon the average tender costs of three-bedroom houses for the first quarter of each year. The allowance made for land and services is only approximate. There are wide variations in the cost of land and services between different sites.

2. It is not possible to construct a series for a particular local authority since no council obtains tenders for houses at the same time year after year.

Slum Clearance

Sir I. Fraser: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will make a statement on the progress of his slum clearance programme.

Mr. H. Brooke: The slum clearance programme is well under way. The number of unfit houses closed or demolished has gone up from nearly 20,000 in 1954 and just over 25,000 in 1955 to about 35,000 in 1956. The number of people from these old houses who have gone into new homes was 61,000 in 1954, 75,000 in 1955, and 108,000 in 1956. These figures

are encouraging, but slum clearance is so important that I want to see the pace quickened, and I hope that local authorities will intensify the splendid efforts they have already made.

Sir I. Fraser: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether the total amount of building this year will compare favourably with that of previous years?

Mr. Brooke: That is—

Mr. Ellis Smith: And who created the slums?

Mr. Brooke: —a different question which perhaps my hon. Friend will put on the Order Paper. There is no doubt that the amount of slum clearance this year will show an advance on that done in 1956.

Mr. Mitchison: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House when the local authorities will reach the figure which they expected to reach before the Government introduced their slum clearance programme?

Mr. Brooke: All I can say is that the only two successful slum clearance drives in the history of this country have been carried out under Conservative Governments.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT

River Pollution (Sewage Disposal Schemes)

Mr. J. Johnson: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what county boroughs, other than Coventry, have been given his approval to begin new sewage disposal schemes in an effort to check the growing pollution of rivers in their vicinity.

Mr. H. Brooke: Since 1st January, 1955, fifty-two inland county boroughs, apart from Coventry, have had works of sewerage or sewage disposal authorised which should improve the effluent discharged into rivers in the vicinity.

Mr. Johnson: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us how this compares with last year's total of applications? Can he give the House an assurance that he will be sympathetic towards an application for financial help from the authorities concerned, because this is the only


effective way to check the growing menace of river pollution?

Mr. Brooke: The hon. Member's Question did not refer to a particular period, and I gave him the figures for the last two and a half years, in which schemes amounting to £11,600,000 have been authorised.

Mr. Royle: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what improvement there has been since the passing of the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act, 1951? Can he now see any difference in the rivers in the industrial areas?

Mr. Brooke: I answered a Question on that subject last week and said that sixteen river boards reported an improvement in the condition of rivers.

Steetly Works (Dust Control)

Mr. Slater: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government to what extent he satisfied himself as to the safeguards to the general public against the dust fall-out in the West Cornforth and Ferryhill areas before granting planning permission for the construction of the new Steetly works.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. J. R. Bevins): Permission was given by the Durham County Council as local planning authority, and not by my right hon. Friend. But I am assured that the firm's proposals for controlling dust emission were carefully examined before the decision was made.

Mr. Slater: Is the hon. Member aware that there is great concern in the area in view of what has happened at the Steetly works in the Coxhoe area which is only about two miles from where the new plant is being erected? Is he aware that people in the area are very concerned about the fall-out which may take place when the new works come into operation?

Mr. Bevins: Yes, we are aware of the concern felt in other parts of Durham, but before the Durham County Council gave planning permission there was a conference of the county council, the local authority and my right hon. Friend's alkali inspector. We are satisfied that this firm is doing all it possibly can. We shall, however, watch the position carefully.

Local Government Finance (White Paper)

Mr. Chetwynd: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will now make a statement on the reform of local government finance.

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will make a statement on local government finance.

Mr. H. Brooke: I hope to present a White Paper tomorrow.

Mr. Chetwynd: Is there any reason why we could not have it today? Why, when the Question was down for today, could not we have had the Answer today, instead of tomorrow? Will the White Paper give a complete balance sheet to show what the local authorities will lose by this operation?

Mr. Brooke: The White Paper will be ready tomorrow and I recommend the hon. Member to wait and see.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Will the right hon. Gentleman keep in mind the important debate we had yesterday and its relevance to guarantees about finances for the development of mental health work.

Stockton-on-Tees (Nuisance)

Mr. Chetwynd: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what report he has received from his alkali inspector as to the source of the smell affecting Stockton-on-Tees; and what action has been taken to end this nuisance.

Mr. H. Brooke: The probable cause of the very bad smell at the end of May was discovered and dealt with. The sources of the remaining smells have not yet been established with certainty, but intensive efforts are being made to solve the problems by all concerned, including the medical officers of the local authorities and my Alkali Inspectorate.

Mr. Chetwynd: Is the Minister aware of the conference of the eight local authorities and the hospital authorities who at the end of June were asking for very strong measures to be taken to eradicate the smell and who were asking for an alkali inspector to be stationed permanently in the area where the smell has been found? Is not that the best way to deal with the problem?

Mr. Brooke: I have heard of the conference, but I am bound to say that I have not yet received any official approach from the local authorities as a result of it.

Precincts of St. Paul's

Mr. Parker: asker the Minister of Housing and Local Government what progress has been made with the inquiry into the amended plans for the layout of the precincts of St. Paul's; and when he hopes to give a decision.

Mr. H. Brooke: The public local inquiry into the revised plan for the St. Paul's area will be opened on 15th July, and my decision will be given as soon as possible after I have considered the inspector's report.

Tower Hill Area

Mr. Parker: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what progress has been made with the approval of the revised plans for the Tower Hill area.

Mr. Bevins: If the hon. Member is referring to a proposal that building should be allowed on a small part of the land proposed for new open space in the development plan, a public local inquiry has just been held into this, and my right hon. Friend is now awaiting his inspector's report.

New Zealand House (Parking Space)

Captain Pilkington: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government how much parking space is to be provided at ground or other levels in the new New Zealand House, which is to replace the Carlton Hotel.

Mr. Bevins: I understand that the plans provide for parking space for thirty-nine cars under the building which is to replace the Carlton Hotel.

Water and Sewerage Schemes, North Staffordshire

Mr. Harold Davies: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government (1) what schemes for supplying piped water in the area of Cheadle Rural District Council, North Staffordshire, have been submitted to him; and how many have been approved, with dates, since 1945;
(2) what schemes for supplying piped water in the area of Biddulph, North Staffordshire, have been submitted to him; and how many have been approved, with dates, since 1945.

Mr. Bevins: As the Answer lists 28 schemes I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Harold Davies: While thanking the Parliamentary Secretary for that reply, can he tell the House how long it takes for the Ministry to make its decision after a scheme is submitted to his Department?

Mr. Bevins: On the average, a matter of two or three months for these.

SCHEMES FOR SUPPLYING PIPED WATER: NORTH STAFFS.


Cheadle Rural District


Scheme
Submitted
Approved


Caverswall Wood
*
13.11.45


Addersley Mill, Cheadle
*
7.8.46


Mains to new houses (Cheadle)
*
27.9.46


Parish of Caverswall
*
4.12.46


Tape Street, Cheadle
*
10.7.47


Parish of Checkley
*
2.9.47


Breach Lane, Teanford
*
8.3.48


Parish of Dilhorne
*
2.7.48


Cotton—Oakamoor
*
30.8.48


Alton—Alton Common
*
12.1.49


Parish of Farley
27.4.51
20.5.52


Oakamoor Area
10.9.51
16.10.53


Parish of Caverswall
30.6.52
4.11.52


Parish of Weston Coyney
15.5.53
8.6.53


Sheepwash, Caverswall
14.7.53
25.6.54


Ramshorn Road Area, Oakamoor
2.7.54
4.1.55


Stoney Lane, Cauldon Low
6.8.54
24.11.54


Consall
28.12.55
28.5.56


Oakamoor—Kingsley
10.2.56
16.11.56


Waterhouses, Cotton and Blore-with-Swinscoe
20.4.56
4.2.57


Withystakes, Werrington (First stage)
30.6.56
23.8.56


Ipstones Edge, Bottom-houses and Winkhill
25.1.57
(Under consideration)

Mr. Harold Davies: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what grants have been made since 1945 to the local authorities of Kids-grove, Cheadle, Biddulph, and Leek to help provide water and/or sewage schemes in the areas.

Mr. Bevins: No such grants have been made to the Urban District Councils of Kidsgrove or Leek.
The capital equivalent of grants paid or undertaken to be paid by my Department to Cheadle Rural District Council is £7,694 for water, and £108,000 for sewerage; and to Leek Rural District Council £35,000 for water and £4,636 for sewerage.
During the same period my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has also paid or undertaken to pay grants for water schemes for farm purposes totalling £5,000 to Biddulph Urban District Council, and £11,500 to Cheadle Rural District Council.

Mr. Harold Davies: While thanking the Parliamentary Secretary for that reply, does he realise that the problem throughout the whole of the country is similar to that of the hill districts which I have mentioned? Has not the time come, whichever party is in power, to consider water supplies as being of major importance to the country? Can he say whether the Government intend urgently to do something about water supplies to rural areas in the near future?

Mr. Bevins: If the hon. Member had been present at the recent debate on water supplies, he would have realised that the Government are greatly conscious of their importance.

National Parks (Administrative Expenses)

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what arrangements he is making to bring in amending legislation to enable grants to be paid to local authorities for their administrative and warden service expenses in connection with National Parks.

Mr. Bevins: My right hon. Friend cannot hold out hopes of introducing legislation to amend the National Parks Act in the near future.

Mr. Blenkinsop: In view of the Parliamentary Secretary's predecessor's invitation to various bodies to submit proposals for amendment, is not it time to give further consideration to the matter, particularly in view of the discussion in the House the other day?

Mr. Bevins: My right hon. Friend has received various representations from several bodies on these two points, and he will certainly bear them in mind against the time when legislation is considered.

Derwent Valley (Reservoir Project)

Mr. Grey: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he has yet reached a decision concerning the inquiry into the Derwent Valley Reservoir proposed by the Durham County Water Board.

Mr. Ainsley: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he has yet received the report on the inquiry into the Derwent Valley proposed site for a new reservoir for the Durham County Water Board; and what decision he has come to.

Mr. Brooke: I am now considering the reports made by the engineering inspector and by the planning inspector who held the public local inquiry into this project, and I hope to announce my decision shortly.

St. James's Theatre

Mr. Stokes: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government the rateable value of the St. James's Theatre; and the estimated value of the site when the theatre has been pulled down.

Mr. H. Brooke: The present rateable value of the St. James's Theatre is £3,283, and the value of the cleared site is estimated at £250,000.

Mr. Stokes: Does not this make nonsense of the statement by the Minister last week? Does he not realise that £250,000 is clearly not included in the rateable value? Surely, if that is so—if I am right in my statement, and I believe that I am—the figure of £50,000 which he mentioned last week for compensation in order not to pull down St. James's Theatre pales into insignificance.

Mr. Brooke: I think it is seldom that one finds that the rateable value exceeds the value of a site in Central London; but I simply informed the House that, if the planning permission granted in 1954 were revoked, I estimated that the compensation from public funds would be upwards of £50,000.

Mr. K. Robinson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that someone has written to The Times offering to start a subscription fund to reach the figure of £50,000 if he will revoke the planning permission?

Mr. Brooke: I also read another letter in The Times describing how hard it was to run an uneconomic theatre.

Mr. Stokes: May I ask the Minister whether he will now indulge in a little mental arithmetic and assess what would be the 20-year purchase at the rateable value? If he does so, he will find that it is £70,000, whereas the value of the site is £250,000. Therefore, it would be to the national advantage to pay £70,000 in order to acquire it, thereby giving the people an asset value of £250,000.

Mr. Brooke: That is as it may be, but the Socialist-controlled London County Council did not think so.

Mr. Stokes: That is no answer for the Tory Government continuing—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman is making a statement. This is Question Time.

Mr. Stokes: May I ask the Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, whether he really thinks that is an excuse for the Tory Government continuing to sin against the light?

Mr. Brooke: I have nothing to add to my last rather conclusive reply.

River Colne, Middlesex

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what recent representations he has received from the Middlesex County Council in regard to the state of the River Colne below Rickmansworth; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. H. Brooke: I have received no such representations from the Middlesex County Council.

Mr. Beswick: Is it not unsatisfactory and is not the Minister concerned that he stated in this House last week that the River Colne was in a better state now than for some time; whereas the Middlesex County Council, in a letter it was constrained to write to local authorities, states:
The county medical officer considers that the river is little better than dilute sewage and constitutes a definite risk to the health of any Middlesex resident who may be tempted to bathe in it.
In the circumstances, does not the Minister think this calls for some action on his part?

Mr. Brooke: No, not by me in the first instance. This is a matter for the Thames Conservancy in the first instance rather than for me.

Mr. Beswick: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman abrogates all responsibility in this matter? Is it right that he should assure people by a statement from this House that the condition of the river is all right, when the county medical officer says it is not?

Mr. Brooke: I am fully aware of my responsibility, but the primary task here rests with the Thames Conservancy. If the Thames Conservancy wishes me to intervene, I am sure that it will communicate with me.

Mr. Lindgren: The Minister repeats that there are sixteen rivers where conditions have improved, but hon. Members on this side of the House know from their correspondence that the local authorities in the areas of these sixteen rivers are denying any improvement. Can the right hon. Gentleman explain that?

Mr. Brooke: I was basing my statement largely on the reports of the river boards presented to this House.

Oral Answers to Questions — TANGANYIKA

African National Union (Public Meetings)

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what decision has been reached by the Government of Tanganyika regarding the lifting of the ban on open air meetings addressed by leaders of the Tanganyika African National Union.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd): I am told by the Governor of Tanganyika that instructions were issued to the Commissioner of Police on 2nd July for the resumption of the grant of permits for public meetings to be addressed by officers of the Tanganyika African National Union under such conditions as may be specified in individual permits.

Mr. Brockway: We welcome that concession, but may we have some particulars about these conditions? Is not it desirable that Mr. Nyerere, the leader of the Tanganyika African National Union, should have these facilities on his return from the United Nations?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I will consider publishing in the OFFICIAL REPORT the sort of conditions that might be instituted.

Technical Training

Mr. Wilfred Paling: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the numbers of Africans from Tanganyika who are receiving technical training at Makerere College, at the Royal Technical College, Nairobi, at the Yunda Trade School, the number who will be admitted to the new trade school at Moshi and the numbers receiving technical training in the United Kingdom respectively, for the years 1955–57 inclusive.

Mr. Profumo: My right hon. Friend is asking the Governor for this information and will circulate it when received in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mining Industry

Mr. Wilfred Paling: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the number of Africans in the mining industry in Tanganyika who are employed in skilled work and the number of Asians and Europeans who are employed on comparable work.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: No labour statistics are available yet for the current year. In 1956 African skilled labour employed in the mining industry in Tanganyika numbered 4,342. No Europeans or Asians are known to be employed on comparable work.

Mr. Paling: Is not it a fact that, although the number of Africans in the territory is very much greater than that

of Asians or Europeans, very few Africans are employed in work which requires skilled labour? What is being done to ensure that Africans will have a greater opportunity to become skilled workers in future?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: One has to see this matter in perspective. There are about 600 Europeans, 300 Asians and 16,000 Africans doing mining work in Tanganyika. Steps are being taken, both in Government institutions and in the mines, to bring Africans properly along in the advancement of their skill.

Constitutional Advance

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the recommendations of the Governor of Tanganyika for constitutional advance.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I do not think that I can usefully add to my statement on constitutional advance in Tanganyika during the debate on 4th June, beyond informing the House that the Ministerial system was inaugurated on 1st July.

Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Colonial Secretary aware that in Tanganyika there is anxiety lest constitutional advance is held back? Can he give any indication when it will be possible to announce direct elections to take place in Tanganyika?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: If the hon. Member will read what I said both on 4th June and also on 6th May he will see that I dealt with both those points. I recognise the anxiety to which the hon. Member has referred, but I also recognise the anxiety lest progress should be in the wrong direction.

Education

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many African children of primary school age there are in Tanganyika; how many of them attend primary schools; and how many go on to secondary schools.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. John Profumo): Out of an estimated total of 859,000 African children of primary school age in Tanganyika, 336,079 were enrolled in primary


schools in 1956. In the same year, 32,845 African children were enrolled in the middle schools, which are an intermediate stage in the educational system in the territory, and 2,409 in secondary schools.

Mr. MacPherson: In view of the fact that less than half the African children of primary school age seem to be in primary schools, will the Minister reconsider the official statement that the new five-year plan may be held back for financial reasons? If the manpower is available, will he give an undertaking that finance will not stop the expansion?

Mr. Profumo: It is not only a question of expense, but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, of establishments and teachers. The Government of the Territory have got what they regard—and my right hon. Friend agrees with them—as a balanced programme, which we intend to pursue.

Mr. MacPherson: Is not that exactly the point I have just made? Will the Minister undertake that if the manpower is available, in the terms that he has just described, finance itself will not hold back the development of the plan?

Mr. Profumo: I think that that is hypothetical. I did not say that all the other factors were as the hon. Member presumed.

Mr. Swingler: Will the Under-Secretary say what is being done about these other factors? Are not these figures appallingly low? What is the good of talking about political advance unless some further steps are taken to provide universal education? Will he be more forthcoming and say what is being done to provide the resources to give this education to the African children?

Mr. Profumo: I do not agree with the hon. Member that progress is not being made. I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House realise the problems that still exist in this Territory. Within these limitations, everything is being done to promote education.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Has not there been an immense advance on the position of ten years ago?

Mr. Profumo: That is perfectly true.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA

Racial Discrimination

Sir L. Plummer: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps are being taken by the Government of Kenya to prevent all forms of racial discrimination in hotels, restaurants and other public places.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: In accepting a Motion in the Kenya Legislative Council calling for the progressive elimination of all forms of discrimination in hotels, restaurants and public places, the Kenya Government expressed its strong opposition to racial discrimination. As hon. Members who have visited Kenya recently will realise, there has been a great improvement in this matter in the last few years and the publicity given to the debate on the Motion will doubtless provide a stimulus for further advance. However, while being anxious to secure further improvement by every form of persuasion and guidance, the Kenya Government does not consider that there is scope at the present time for hastening the process by legislation. I agree with the Kenya Government's views.

Sir L. Plummer: Will the Colonial Secretary bring to the attention of some of his hon. Friends—who on two occasions talked out a Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) to deal with racial discrimination—the most progressive step taken by the Kenya Government?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I will certainly bring to their attention the action taken in Kenya. I think also that a great many people, including certain trade unions in East Africa and elsewhere, need some guidance on this point.

Mr. Dugdale: I welcome the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's answer. Would not he suggest that the Governor might make an announcement that no hotel practising racial discrimination will be used in future for any official function whatever, and that, as an example to the rest of the population of Kenya, the Governor will himself refrain from using such hotels?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I do not know whether a dramatic observation of that kind would be a real contribution.

Land Development Projects (Co-operative Societies)

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps are being taken by the Government of Kenya to establish co-operative societies to assist in land development projects.

Mr. Profumo: The formation of co-operative societies to handle the growing output of cash crops in these areas is encouraged by the Kenya Government.

Mr. Stonehouse: Is it a fact that the establishment strength is not filled in the co-operative department in Kenya? What are the Kenya authorities doing to correct this position?

Mr. Profumo: I should not like to answer that question without notice. I can assure the hon. Member that the Kenya Government are giving every possible encouragement to this movement.

Rural Wages (Policy)

Mr. J. Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why the Kenya Government do not intend to publish the Report on Rural Wages.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The Kenya Government decided that publication of the Report would not be in the best interests of either employers or employees, but their examination of the whole question of rural wages will continue in the light of the committee's recommendations, and a full statement of policy will be made after discussions with representatives of both employers and employees.

Mr. Johnson: Why is this? Is the Minister aware that this Report has been awaited with anxiety by the Africans for a long time? Does not he also agree that it is a fact that there is not a single African upon the committee which sat? Is not it unfortunate that, with no African upon that committee, we are not publishing its Report? Will not that have an unfortunate effect upon public opinion?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: When the full statement that I have promised is published the hon. Member may think it was wise not to publish the Report at this time.

Oral Answers to Questions — COLONIAL TERRITORIES

Prisoners (Leg Irons)

Sir L. Plummer: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies in which Colonial Territories the use of leg irons for the transportation or detention of prisoners is still permitted.

Mr. Profumo: The use of leg irons is still permitted in twenty-three Colonial Territories but they have been used in recent years in Bahamas, Fiji, Kenya, the Federation of Nigeria, St. Vincent, Tanganyika and Uganda only. They are in no cases used as a punishment, but to prevent escape during transfer or to ensure that a prisoner does not injure himself or others.

Sir L. Plummer: Is the Minister aware that early last month the Australian Government banned the use of leg irons in New Guinea and that, clearly, the Australian Government regard this as a medieval and barbaric practice? Does not the Minister agree that this is contrary to the Declaration of Human Rights and will he now use his influence to see that these instruments are banned throughout the territories for which he is responsible?

Mr. Profumo: I think it important to remember what I said in the last part of my Answer. These have not been used in all the territories. They are not used as a punishment. The laws governing the use of mechanical restraints are constantly being reviewed in the various territories and there is much evidence to show that legislation is gradually being brought into line with accepted practice.

Mrs. Slater: Why not quicken it up?

Mr. Shinwell: Will the Minister reconsider this matter? Is he aware that in the past this form of punishment was used in this country and in other so-called civilised countries, but we departed from that method? Is not it possible to do something to prevent this going on?

Mr. Profumo: I need hardly ask my right hon. Friend to look into the matter. I am sure that he has noted what the right hon. Gentleman said.

Mr. Gower: Will the Minister consider to what extent effective use might be made of handcuffs instead of leg irons?

Development and Welfare Schemes (Expenditure)

Mr. Dugdalo: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why actual expenditure on colonial development and welfare schemes during the year ended 31st March, 1957, was little more than two-thirds of the amount available.

Mr. Profumo: Of the £220 million made available under the Colonial Development and Welfare Acts, 1945 to 1955, £178 million had been committed to approved schemes by the 1st April, 1957, and just over £135 million had been spent. The main factor which governs the rate of expenditure is the capacity of Colonial Governments to execute development works. This capacity has steadily increased and is expected to increase more rapidly in the future.

Mr. Dugdale: In view of the need for colonial development, which is admitted on both sides of the House, is it not most unfortunate that there should be this underspending of moneys voted by Parliament for that purpose?

Mr. Profumo: It may be unfortunate, but I have told the right hon. Gentleman the limitations which exist.

Oral Answers to Questions — BAHAMAS

Constitution

Mr. Royle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what reply has been given by Her Majesty's Government to the recomemndation of the Constitution Committee of the Bahamas that six members be elected to the Executive Council by the House of Assembly and that the elected Executive Council should advise the Governor on the appointment of public boards and commissions, standing committees and public authorities.

Mr. Profumo: The consideration of the Committee's Report in the Bahamas is not yet completed. The question of a reply does not therefore yet arise.

Mr. Royle: Is not it a fact that the Committee was devastating in its criticism of the present Constitution? Will the Minister hurry up this matter? Further, will he have more copies of this very important Report placed in the Library and made available to Members?

Mr. Profumo: To the last part of the hon. Member's supplementary question, the answer is "Yes". The Report of the Committee of the House of Assembly is now being considered by the Legislative Council and the Council has sent the Report to a Committee. That is the stage reached.

Port Development Work (Wages and Conditions)

Mr. Royle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if the Government of the Bahamas in the terms of its agreement with the firms formally licensed in the Free Port Authority of Grand Bahama will ensure that statutory minimum wages and trade union rights are available to workers in the proposed development of the port.

Mr. Profumo: Firms will be licensed by the Grand Bahama Port Authority and not by the Government of the Bahamas. Under the terms of the agreement with the Port Authority, workers employed by firms so licensed will enjoy the protection of the statutory minimum wages and trade union rights available elsewhere in the Bahamas.

Mr. Royle: Would not it have been better if the Government had undertaken the construction of this new port themselves? The guarantee would have been very much better than it is in the hands of the American millionaires who are building the port.

Mr. Profumo: No, Sir. I think that this is being done in the widest national interests, and I do not think there is any reason to think that it is being done in the wrong manner.

Oral Answers to Questions — GIBRALTAR

Frontier Restrictions

Mr. Hornby: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the restrictions by the Spanish Government on trade and movement between Gibraltar and Spain are still being maintained.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes, Sir. I regret that that is still so.

Mr. Hornby: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what representations have been made to the Spanish


Government on this subject? Can he also tell us what are the reasons for the Spanish Government's actions?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I suppose the reasons are largely historical. As to representations, we have made them from time to time; indeed, we are constantly pointing out what I believe to be true, namely, that these restrictions are harmful to the interests of Spain herself, as well as to those of Gibraltar.

Oral Answers to Questions — SIERRA LEONE

Illicit Diamond Mining

Mr. R. Edwards: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will consider making approaches to the Government of Liberia with a view to joint action for the controlling of illicit diamond mining on the Liberian-Sierra Leone frontier.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes, Sir. I will consider the hon. Member's suggestion in consultation with the Government of Sierra Leone and with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

Mr. J. Johnson: Is not it a fact that the loss is due not so much to illicit diamond mining, as such, as to diamond smuggling? Will the Minister look into that point also?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I think that that is the larger factor.

Rutile Deposits (Development)

Mr. R. Edwards: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what decisions have been reached by the Governments of the United Kingdom and Sierra Leone as a result of their discussions with Columbia-Southern Chemicals Company and British Titan Products Limited on the development of Sierra Leone's rutile deposits.

Mr. Profumo: No decisions have yet been reached.

Mr. Edwards: During these negotiations, will the Minister take into consideration the fact that, despite the name "British Titan Products Limited", this is really an international firm and part of an international restrictive cartel?

Will he give some assurances that what happened in pre-war days will not happen in Sierra Leone, and that, if the company receives permission to develop, it will really develop and not restrict development in order to prevent some other company exploiting these important deposits?

Mr. Profumo: As the hon. Member knows, negotiations broke down because the Government did not feel that they could grant various things which the company wanted. I think that we had better wait until negotiations open again before we go into the matter any further.

Transport Services (Expenditure)

Mr. R. Edwards: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the amounts spent during the current year by the Sierra Leone Government on the development of air services, roads, and railways, respectively.

Mr. Profumo: Approximate figures for the first half of this year are £11,500 for air services, £383,000 for roads and bridges, and £186,000 for the railway.

Oral Answers to Questions — UGANDA

Farm Institute, Bukalasa

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many of the students at the new farm institute at Bukalasa, Uganda, are African, Asian and European, respectively; what are their fees; what financial assistance is available to students; and how many are women students.

Mr. Profumo: The fifty-two students, all of whom at present are male Africans, are charged a fee of £15 a year towards the cost of tuition, board and accommodation. In cases of need Government bursaries up to this amount are awarded and, in addition, each student so assisted receives a personal allowance of £12 a year.

Mr. Rankin: Am I to understand from that Answer that there are no Asian or European students?

Mr. Profumo: That is correct. There are not at present, but I am not aware of any restriction on them.

NUCLEAR TESTS (RADIATION HAZARDS)

Mr. Beswick: asked the Prime Minister to what extent the most recent advice from the Medical Research Council in regard to radiation hazards from the fall-out resulting from nuclear weapon tests represented the unanimous opinion of the committee appointed by the Medical Research Council to report on the hazards to man of nuclear and allied radiation.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): The most recent advice from the Medical Research Council has been given after full consideration of the available scientific evidence and the various views which have been expressed regarding its significance, and after consultation with the Council's expert advisers and committees. As I have stated previously, there has been no full meeting of the committee which produced the Report on the Hazards to Man of Nuclear and Allied Radiations since its publication in June, 1956, but I am assured that there is no reason to modify in any important respect the conclusions reached at that time.

Mr. Beswick: Are we to understand, therefore, that not only has there been no recent report from the full committee but that the Report to which the Prime Minister referred itself underlines the incomplete character of the evidence before the committee? In view of the fact that some individual members of the committee have expressed their concern about information which has come to light since the Report was published, does not the Prime Minister think that he was ill-advised to give such categorical and definite assurances as he has given in this House?

The Prime Minister: The evidence is under continuous review, of course, by a special sub-committee of the Council's committee concerned with protection against ionising radiations.

Mr. Blenkinsop: In view of the claims made for the recent bomb tests both by this country and the United States, is not it vital that we should have a complete revision of the earlier investigation made by the Medical Research Council?

The Prime Minister: That is why this process of revision is continuing.

Mr. Royle: asked the Prime Minister if his attention has been drawn to Recommendation 140 (1957) of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe on nuclear and thermonuclear test explosions; and what action is being taken thereon by Her Majesty's Government.

The Prime Minister: This Recommendation of the Consultative Assembly was submitted to the Committee of Ministers at the Council of Europe, whose Deputies considered it at a meeting on 24th–28th May. They decided not to support the Recommendation but to inform the Assembly that a conference of the type requested has already been set up by the United Nations.

Mr. Royle: In view of the anxiety which is expressed in this Recommendation by other European countries who may be themselves on the verge of production, will the Prime Minister intimate that Her Majesty's Government are prepared to agree to the setting up of a committee of European scientists? Further, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he agrees, in view of the recent explosion by the United States of America and what appears to be the failure of the present discussions on nuclear tests at the disarmament conference, that it is time that somebody took the moral leadership? Why should not this country make up its mind not to have any more tests?

The Prime Minister: I do not know that there is any great moral leadership in setting up a committee. It is only a question whether this expert work had better be done by a committee of the Council of Europe or by the United Nations Committee on Radiation Hazards. In view of the fact that the Ministers of the Council of Europe decided that on the whole it was better not to duplicate this work but to rest upon the United Nations committee, I think the hon. Gentleman will see that it would be difficult for Her Majesty's Government to dissent from their view.

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: When may we expect the White Paper on the work of the United Nations Sub-Committee that the Government promised us last week?

The Prime Minister: That is another question. If the right hon. Gentleman will put it down, I will do my best to answer it.

Mr. Noel-Baker: If we are to debate this White Paper next week, is it not becoming rather urgent?

The Prime Minister: That is why I suggested that the right hon. Gentleman should put a Question on the Paper.

STANDING ORDERS 27 AND 28

Mr. Shepherd: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the use now made of the Count and the changed circumstances since it was first introduced. He will move to amend Standing Orders 27 and 28 with a view to abolishing the Count and, as a safeguard, substituting a minimum number of votes to be required in support of a Question before it can be carried.

The Prime Minister: The right to call a Count is founded on very long-established practice. I am not clear what changed circumstances my hon. Friend has in mind but I do not consider that a procedure of such antiquity should be lightly changed. I would also point out that the need for a quorum is common to almost all assemblies.

ANGLO-SOVIET TRADE

Mr. Pargiter: asked the Prime Minister what consultations he had with representatives of firms experienced in dealing with the Soviet trade enterprises before he sent his letter to Mr. Bulganin expressing doubt about the possibility of achieving an increased turnover of trade with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The Prime Minister: I have no doubt about the possibility of increasing Anglo-Soviet trade even more rapidly than it has been increasing in recent years if the Soviet authorities will respond constructively to the suggestions in my letter. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade is of course constantly in touch with firms handling Anglo-Soviet trade.

Mr. Pargiter: Is the Prime Minister not aware that the tone of the letter was more liable to upset relationships than to help them, in view of the doubts it suggested whether this matter can be best handled through the machinery which the Soviets have very definitely established and will continue to use?

The Prime Minister: I hope that the terms of my letter were not calculated to upset the Government of Soviet Russia. The letter was carefully thought out, and I think it was courteous and constructive.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Has the right hon. Gentleman noted the rather friendly note in the speech about Russia delivered during the weekend by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill)? Will the Prime Minister assure us that he will not ask the Foreign Secretary to denounce the right hon. Member for Woodford as a fellow-traveller?

The Prime Minister: Everything that my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) says is always wise and always pertinent.

Mr. Chetwynd: Especially his scathing remarks in 1911 about the Tory Party.

The Prime Minister: He has said some things about your party, too.

NORTHERN IRELAND (BORDER INCIDENT)

Mr. Armstrong: asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to the attack on a police patrol at Crossmaglen on the Northern Ireland border on Thursday, 4th July, when a police constable was killed; whether he is aware of the tension in Northern Ireland because the assailants escaped across the border into Eire and so out of the jurisdiction of the Northern Ireland Government; and whether he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: Her Majesty's Government have learned with deep regret that one member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary was murdered and another seriously injured in the early hours of 4th July in an ambush close to the border in Armagh and tender their deep sympathy with the relatives.
It has been established by the Royal Ulster Constabulary that the persons concerned in the ambush escaped into Republican territory. In view of this, Her Majesty's Ambassador in Dublin has already taken the matter up with the Government of the Republic, who equally deplore this incident and are doing all they can to trace the culprits.

Mr. Armstrong: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the people of Northern Ireland have all along had confidence in their own Government and their own police but that there has been a bitter and dangerous sense of frustration when it seemed that the people responsible for these murderous attacks were able to find sanctuary across the border? Further, is my right hon. Friend aware that the action taken during the last few days by the Government of the Irish Republic will do much to make it easier for those in Northern Ireland who have striven for restraint and against any form of reprisal or retaliation, more especially if it is possible to bring to justice the murderer of this policeman?

The Prime Minister: I think the whole House will feel, with me, that we sympathise, admire and accept the very wise words which have fallen from my hon. Friend.

U.S.S.R. (INVITATION TO PRIME MINISTER)

Mr. Proctor: asked the Prime Minister if, in view of the recent changes in the Russian Government which may make diplomatic action more fruitful, he will now accept the invitation to visit the leaders of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at an early date.

The Prime Minister: For the present I have nothing to add to previous Answers which I have given on this topic, the most recent being that to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) on 6th June.

Mr. Proctor: Does the Prime Minister realise that events such as the death and denunciation of Stalin and the removal of Molotov give an opportunity for influencing, and not only following, events? Does he realise that a visit by himself to Russia, with an expression of our desire for peace to the Russian people and perhaps a call

in on the Eastern European countries on the way back, might have a beneficial effect upon the possibilities of peace in the world?

The Prime Minister: It would not be right for me to comment on the internal political developments of another country. I would venture to say what I have said before, that visits of this kind need careful preparation and careful timing if they are to be useful.

Mr. Paget: Can the Prime Minister tell us whether Her Majesty's Government regard the fact that the Russian leaders have taken to murdering each other again as a good or bad symptom and whether it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to encourage or discourage that practice?

The Prime Minister: That is one of those supplementary questions which stands upon its own basis and does not, I think, require a reply.

Mr. Shinwell: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, in the interests of accuracy and so far as reports are available, whether there is any truth in the suggestion that the Russian leaders are at present murdering each other?

The Prime Minister: It was not my supplementary question.

Oral Answers to Questions — NIGERIA

Election Declarations

Captain Pilkington: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why voters in the Nigerian elections are required to sign a declaration to the effect that they have not been sentenced to death or to imprisonment for a term exceeding six months and have not suffered such punishment.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: This requirement, which applies to electors in the urban registration areas in the Northern Region and to electors in regional elections in the Western Region and in the Southern Cameroons, is a means of drawing attention to the disqualification.

Captain Pilkington: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is causing a certain amount of bewilderment out there? Would it be possible to revise the phrasing of the regulation?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: As soon as I saw the Question, I decided that that was a desirable follow-up.

Oral Answers to Questions — CYPRUS

Prisoners, Wormwood Scrubs

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he has now received the results of the investigation in Cyprus of the complaints made by Cypriot prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs Prison.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Not yet, Sir.

Mr. Brockway: In view of the fact that the hon. Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) and I saw prisoners at Wormwood Scrubs whose arms had been broken, who had swellings on their bodies the size of cricket balls, and scars on their necks, will the right hon. Gentleman take this opportunity, for the sake of the reputation of the medical officer at Wormwood Scrubs, to correct his statement in this House on 27th June that when the medical officer examined them:
No marks, bruises, or anything else suggesting injury or ill-treatment were noticed on any of these men."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th June, 1957; Vol. 572, c. 387.]

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I have nothing to add to what I said last week. As soon as possible I shall lay the information before the House. Although the administration of Wormwood Scrubs is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, naturally I have found out what has happened. The Cypriot prisoners have refused to be examined by the prison medical officer. I think the House might draw some conclusion, anyhow, from that.

Mrs. L. Jeger: Surely that is a direct contradiction of a statement which the right hon. Gentleman made in this House recently when he stated that the prisoners had been examined by the medical officer at the prison who had found no marks and no bruises whatever?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The hon. Lady perhaps misunderstood. They were, of course, examined by the prison medical officer on entry to the prison; but, as a result of the statement made last week,

the prison medical officer was anxious to make another examination. They insisted on some outside doctor and refused to be examined by the prison medical officer. This is a matter for the Home Office, but I personally entirely share the view of my right hon. Friend that we could not accept a reflection of that kind on the integrity and fair-mindedness of the proper authority.

Mr. Brockway: On a point of order. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the integrity of the medical officer, but the integrity of the hon. Member for Cannock and myself is also involved. We have seen these injuries on these men and the right hon. Gentleman says the medical officer has examined them and found no injuries. It is a matter between the medical officer and us. Why does the right hon. Gentleman refuse an independent examination?

Mr. Speaker: I must say I did not hear any reflection cast upon the integrity either of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) or his hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Miss Lee). There was nothing of that sort which reached my ears.

Police Force

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many police officers now serving in Cyprus were recruited from United Kingdom police forces; how many Europeans were recruited outside the United Kingdom after experience with such forces as the Kenya or Palestine police; and what approximate proportions of the whole Cyprus police these two categories represent.

Mr. Profumo: Three hundred and fifty-five serving officers, including 53 women police, have been recruited from United Kingdom police forces. Forty-two other officers have served in colonial police forces outside Cyprus. These two categories represent about 16 per cent. and 2 per cent. respectively of the total regular police strength.

Mr. Robinson: Does the hon. Gentleman recall that in the recent White Paper the Governor of Cyprus said that any allegations of brutality on the part of the police force were ridiculous because everyone knew what a decent and well-behaved chap the British constable was?


Do not these figures make that totally irrelevant as a reply to the allegations that have been made?

Mr. Profumo: No, Sir, I certainly cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman.

MALTA

Proposals

Major Wall: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) whether he will make a statement regarding proposed constitutional changes in Malta;
(2) if he will make a statement about Her Majesty's Government's present proposals to help the economy of Malta.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am not in a position to make a statement on these matters at the moment.

Major Wall: Can my right hon. Friend say when he is likely to make a statement on these proposals? Does he appreciate that the lack of information is causing anxiety in Malta?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes, I realise that. A statement will be made as soon as possible.

CENTRAL AFRICA

Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland (African Representatives)

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what advice has been given by Her Majesty's Government to the Governments of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland on the formal proposal of the Federal Prime Minister that the members of the Northern Rhodesia African Representative Council and of the Nyasaland African Protectorate Council, respectively, should be deprived of their powers to nominate African members of the Federal Parliament in the event of African representatives being elected by other means.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Her Majesty's Government advised the Governors of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland that no objection was seen to the passage of a Resolution by each of the Legislative Councils that they did not object to the introduction of the Federal Constitution

Amendment Bill. When African representatives are elected by other means it will represent a great advance, because it will mean that they have been elected on their own merits by voters of all races. In such circumstances, there would no longer remain the same necessity for reserved seats, and Her Majesty's Government saw no objection to the introduction of a Bill containing the provision that in those circumstances reserved seats should be progressively removed.

Mr. Brockway: Is not this a very serious matter indeed? Is it not the case that under the new proposals the maximum number of African representatives would be one-third of the legislature and this would involve the disappearance of any representation of the African Councils and even of the African Affairs Board? In view of the statement by Lord Chandos that no alteration of the constitution would be accepted without the numerical support of the majority of the people of Central Africa, is not this a betrayal of the African population?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Most certainly not. I should have thought that all those who have the welfare of Africans genuinely at heart would rejoice to see the time when their members take their places, elected by other people and on their merits.

Mr. J. Johnson: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether any objection to this change has been voiced by the members of the African Affairs Board inside the Federal Government?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: To the best of my knowledge, no, but I shall take steps to bring the fact to the attention of the House if I am in error on that matter. In Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland African members made protests against this, as the hon. Member knows.

WEST INDIES

Leased Areas

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies to what extent the areas leased in Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad, and other British Caribbean territories in August, 1940 to the United States of America have been increased, reduced or otherwise altered since then.

Mr. Profumo: The Second Annex to the Leased Bases Agreement of March, 1941—which does not affect Barbados—describes the areas then provisionally selected for leasing to the United States. They cover some 62,000 acres. The Agreement provided for the leasing of supplementary areas and the total made available to the United States under it is about 87,000 acres. Approximately 70,000 acres of this is not occupied by the United States at present and, subject to rights of reoccupation in emergency, large areas have been released for cultivation and several airfields constructed by the United States are in regular civilian use.

Federal Capital (Site)

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make a further statement on the progress made to acquire a site for the federal capital of the West Indies.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The Standing Federation Committee has expressed a wish that the Federal capital should be sited in the North-Western Peninsula of Trinidad, an area leased to the United States under the Leased Bases Agreement, 1941. As was announced on the 1st July, discussions between Her Majesty's Government and representatives of the Standing Federation Committee on this request will open in London this week and will be followed by discussions with representatives of the Government of the United States of America.

ADEN

Teachers (Egyptian Nationality)

Mr. M. Clark Hutchison: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many teachers of Egyptian nationality are at preesnt serving on contract with the Aden Government.

Mr. Profumo: My right hon. Friend is consulting the Governor of Aden. When I have his reply, I will circulate the information in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Edward Heath.]

Orders of the Day — EXCHEQUER AND AUDIT DEPARTMENTS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.31 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. J. Enoch Powell): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Ever since the Exchequer and Audit Department was organised on its present basis in 1866, the salary of the Comptroller and Auditor General has always been equal to that of the permanent head of any Government Department other than the Treasury. About a year ago, the salaries of the permanent heads of Departments were, with effect from 1st April last year, raised from £4,500 to £6,000 and it is, therefore, the appropriate consequence of that change that the salary of the Comptroller and Auditor General should be brought into line. His salary, however, is fixed by Letters Patent under the authority of statute and can at present be altered only by legislation.
Accordingly, this Bill is brought forward with the main purpose of making it possible to adjust his salary in that way. It makes it possible for Letters Patent to be issued prescribing a salary of £6,000 for future incumbents and also for the present occupant of the office. It may be felt, however, that where the question is an increase in the Comptroller and Auditor General's salary, in circumstances such as I have described, it is inconvenient and may, indeed, cause hardship to the incumbent that the change can be made only by legislation.
The Bill, therefore, proposes that in future it should be possible to increase the salary by Letters Patent in consequence of a Resolution of this House. It will be observed that that change applies only to an increase, for to safeguard the independent position of the Comptroller and Auditor General it is clearly right that a reduction in his salary should only be brought about, if at all, by Act of Parliament. That is the main purpose of the Bill.
The opportunity has been taken in Clause 2 to remove certain difficulties which arise under the present law in regard to deputising for the Comptroller


and Auditor General. At present, his deputies may act for him in all his functions under the Exchequer and Audit Departments Acts except his function of certifying and reporting accounts to both Houses of Parliament. Further, his deputies may act for him in the counter signature of warrants for the issue of Treasury bills or Exchequer bonds during his illness or absence, hut not during a vacancy of the office.
From the two limitations upon his deputies, which I have mentioned, two inconveniences can flow. In the first place, it might mean that during the incapacity of the Comptroller and Auditor General the business of the Public Accounts Committee of this House was impeded by the fact that he alone could certify and report accounts to the House. Secondly, during a vacancy of the office, however brief, it might well happen that warrants for the issue of Treasury bills would require to be counter-signed and there would be no lawful authority for that to be done by the deputies of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Bill therefore removes those two exceptions to the power of his deputies to act for him.
It does so, however, subject, in the case of the certifying and reporting of accounts, to two very important limitations. The first, Mr. Speaker, is that you will have to certify to this House, or the Lord Chancellor to another place, that the Comptroller and Auditor General is, in fact, unable to certify and report. There will be that safeguard and there will be the second safeguard that this power cannot be used in the case of a vacancy of the office, as opposed to the inability of the incumbent to act. I hope that the House will regard these two minor improvements of the present procedure as conveniences and as properly safeguarded by the terms of the Clause.

3.36 p.m.

Mr. Harold Wilson: I think that the Financial Secretary has amply and adequately commended this important little Bill to the House. As the whole House is aware, the Comptroller and Auditor General is the pivot of the whole system of Parliamentary control over expenditure and finance of which we in this country are rightly proud. Where other countries have sought to follow our procedure in this matter their success has been measured by the extent to which

they have been able to find someone to occupy this position and to give him the authority and independence which, ever since the days of Gladstone's reform in the 1860s we have given to the Comptroller and Auditor General in this country.
The Financial Secretary explained that the first purpose of the Bill is to put the Comptroller and Auditor General's remuneration on the same basis as that of Permanent Secretaries, which was always the understanding. I do not think that anyone will want to quarrel with that. It is, of course, a Bill which relates not to any particular individual, but to the office, but I am sure that the whole House, and especially those hon. Members who are members of the Public Accounts Committee, will feel that in the present incumbent of the office this House and, indeed, the taxpayers are unusually fortunate.
I had the pleasure of working with him in the Civil Service during the war and I think that all of us know that, in addition to his traditional independence and impartiality and fearlessness in criticism which must be among the duties of his office, the present Comptroller and Auditor General brings a very long record of public administration, particularly on the human side of administration, which is particularly valuable in the discharge of his functions.
I think, also, that the Financial Secretary was right to ask the House to agree to his proposition that should there be any future changes in salaries of Permanent Secretaries it is right that the necessary consequential action can be taken without having to go through all the trouble of introducing a Bill in the House though, clearly, since the Comptroller and Auditor General is uniquely the servant of the Government and in other respects has a tenure comparable to that of a High Court judge, it is right that it should not be done merely by administrative acts but must require a Resolution of this House as provided for in the Bill.
Turning to Clause 2, it is said that a recent experience has brought this point to a head. Perhaps this is more of a Committee point, but the Financial Secretary referred to the special authority given under Clause 2 by you, Mr. Speaker, and I take it that when he said that this ceases on a vacancy


arising he means first, that if there is no Comptroller and Auditor General none of his deputies can act as though there were, and, secondly, that the authority will have to be given anew after the appointment of a new Comptroller and Auditor General to any of his deputies.

Mr. Powell: This is for the purpose of certifying and reporting?

Mr. Wilson: That is what I mean. I am referring to the latter part of Clause 2.
I am sure that no hon. Member in any part of the House will find anything to quarrel about in the Bill and I am sure that we desire to give it an unopposed Second Reading.

3.41 p.m.

Sir Patrick Spens: I rise with a good deal of anxiety merely on the provision that a Resolution of this House alone should be sufficient to increase the salary of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Comptroller and Auditor General is an official whose duties extend to the whole of Parliament and he, with the High Court judges, is put in a unique position. I do not believe for a moment that the House would agree that the salaries of High Court judges should be increased merely by a Resolution of this House or, if the House took such a view, I am sure that another place would very much resent the assumption by this House of that power.
Basically, the anxiety is that under no no circumstances should a High Court judge or a Comptroller and Auditor General be put in a position in which he might fear to take any action because his own personal fortunes might be involved. The protection for High Court judges and for the Comptroller and Auditor General has always been that an Act of Parliament was necessary to deal with their salaries and that their salaries were chargeable on the Consolidated Fund.
I hope that the House appreciates that I fully endorse the financial control of this House, but I think this is the first occasion on which any suggestion has been made that a Resolution of this House alone should be sufficient in this matter and that an official in this or a similar position should be dependent on the good will of this House alone. I

suggest that this is an innovation which ought to be very carefully considered before we put this entirely independent officer in the position of being dependent solely on a Resolution of this House. I think, with great respect, that another place might resent the assumption of that power by this House.

Mr. H. Wilson: The right hon. and learned Member clearly wishes to continue the existing principle whereby legislation is necessary. Is it not clear from the printing of the Bill that any provision of this kind would be regarded as a financial Measure and uniquely within the control of this House?

3.43 p.m.

Mr. George Benson: The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) has overlooked the fact that a Resolution of the House can only increase the salary of the Comptroller and Auditor General and cannot decrease it. In fact, it makes it easier for us to reward him.
I cannot allow the Bill to go through merely with a formal speech, for the Comptroller and Auditor General is essentially the servant of this House.

Sir P. Spens: Sir P. Spensindicated dissent.

Mr. Benson: Yes, that is so, because it is this House which is responsible for finance in this country. He is not the servant of the Government. He is the servant of this House and of the back bencher.
I do not think that anyone can realise how important are the functions of the Comptroller and Auditor General unless he has spent some time in the Public Accounts Committee. As a member of that Committee, I realise how helpless the Committee would be without the immense knowledge which the Comptroller and Auditor General can put at its disposal as a result of his audit, which is not merely an audit in the ordinary commercial sense but is a searching and extremely intrusive investigation into the affairs of every Department. It is a most effective discipline.
When I hear sneers at Government Departments and civil servants, I often wonder how private industry or any great industrial concern would face up to an investigation of the same searching and


intrusive character as that which Departments undergo from the Comptroller and Auditor General. I fancy that they would come out of it rather badly. The fact that year by year we in the Public Accounts Committee, with the help of the Comptroller and Auditor General, go through very large areas of expenditure and find, on the whole, comparatively little to criticise is, I think, one of the strongest commendations of the efficiency of our civil servants and of our Government Departments which could be found.
The Comptroller and Auditor General's salary is paid out of the Consolidated Fund. That is to protect him against the machinations of the Government. It is a protection which is shared by you, Mr. Speaker, by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, the judiciary and the Royal Family. As well as such important people, it is also shared by people of lesser importance. On reference to the Finance Accounts, I find, for instance, that a preacher at the University of Cambridge draws £8 3s. 6d. a year under that protection. A preacher at the University of Oxford, slightly inferior, I gather, receives protection for his salary of £7 19s. 6d. a year, 4s. less than the Cambridge preacher.
Joking apart, the Exchequer and Audit Department is the aegis of this House against the Government. I am glad that steps have been taken, somewhat tardily, to bring the salary of the Comptroller and Auditor General up to the level of the heads of Government Departments.
In passing, I should like to mention that the Comptroller and Auditor General is not merely the auditor of Government accounts. He is the auditor of U.N.E.S.C.O., he is the auditor to the International Meteorological Office, he is the auditor to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and he is Chairman of the joint chairmen's organisation of U.N.O.

Mr. H. Hynd: Does he get separate salaries for these jobs?

Mr. Benson: He does not. They are voluntary. I would not mind if he did, for I have never felt that it was economy to try to buy brains cheaply. I was glad to see that civil servants have received an increase in remuneration and I am glad that the Comptroller and Auditor General is now to share it.

3.50 p.m.

Mr. John Arbuthnot: It would be a pity if the Second Reading of the Bill were to pass without a word of tribute being added from the back benches on this side, also, to the present Comptroller and Auditor General. We feel that the passing of the Bill will put right something that is overdue. We all greatly welcome it and we hope that the present incumbent of the office will remain for many years to serve the Public Accounts Committee.
Anyone who has served on that Committee, as I have, knows what hard work the Comptroller and Auditor General puts into his office and how impartial he is in his examination. We recognise what a great servant of this House we have in the present holder of the office.

3.51 p.m.

Mr. James H. Hoy: As one who has been a member of the Public Accounts Committee for some years, I wish to add my tribute to the present Comptroller and Auditor General. It is not necessary for me to add much, in view of what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson), who, it should be remembered, has been a member of the Public Accounts Committee for twenty-four years—one-quarter of the total life of that Committee—and during the past five years has been its distinguished Chairman, rendering great service to every Member of the House. My hon. Friend was well fitted to pay his tribute to the Comptroller and Auditor General.
I have been associated with the Comptroller and Auditor General for some years and I am sure that every right hon. and hon. Member would like to pay this tribute to him for the great service he renders to the Committee and to the House as a whole.

3.52 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Pickthorn: I have been only slightly a member of the Public Accounts Committee, but enough to wish to add my appreciation to the words which have been uttered by others. I would not have bothered the House had I not wanted also to ask a question, which perhaps displays more ignorance than I ought to be guilty of. I rose mainly to express my appreciation.
Is it quite certain, as has been said, that it is on the Resolution alone that the payment of this money will be authorised, or must it appear also in the Appropriation Bill? I am not quite sure of the answer, although, I have no doubt, I ought to be.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Oakshott.]

Committee Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — EXCHEQUER AND AUDIT DEPARTMENTS [MONEY]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).— [Queen's Recommendation signified.]

[Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision as to the salary of the Comptroller and Auditor General, it is expedient to authorise the charging on and issuing out of the Consolidated Fund of any sums required to be so charged and issued under or in consequence of any provision of that Act and the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to that Act in the sums so payable under section sixty-two of the Superannuation Act. 1949, as applied by subsection (3) of section three of the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act, I950.—[Mr. Powell.]

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — JUDICIAL OFFICES (SALARIES AND PENSIONS) BILL

Order for Second Reading read

3.54 p.m.

The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
On 18th April, 1957, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the salaries of certain judicial officers in Scotland would be increased with effect from 18th April. These increases did not necessitate legislation, so effect was able to be given to them straight away. On the same day, my right hon. Friend also announced that the salaries of certain other judicial officers—the Recorders of Liverpool and Manchester, county court judges, the

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate and Metropolitan magistrates—ought to be increased and would be increased from 18th April. The Bill seeks to implement my right hon. Friend's statement. Legislation is required for this purpose and these judicial officers have not as yet received the increased salaries which were announced.
The House will remember that in 1956 the Criminal Justice Administration Act was passed and that that Act placed new and important responsibilities on the Recorders of Manchester and Liverpool. It enlarged their jurisdiction and increased their status and the intention was to make the office of Recorder of those great cities similar to the office of Recorder of London.
The salaries of the Recorders of Manchester and Liverpool were fixed at £4,000. The Bill increases them to £4,500. Although the figure of £4,000 was inserted in the 1956 Act, it was, in fact, decided upon in agreement with the City Councils of Liverpool and Manchester, in 1953. The salaries of the Recorder of London, the Common Serjeant and Chairman and Deputy-Chairmen of London Sessions have recently been increased and it is thought to be right to make the proposed increase to these two Recorders.
That increase makes it necessary to amend the 1956 Act so far as it relates to these Recorders' pensions. Under the 1956 Act, their pensions were related to the salary of £4,000. The Bill, by Clause 2, makes no alteration to the rate of pension but relates the rate of pension to the increased salary. The effect of the First Schedule is to make that pension rate operate automatically should there be any future increases of salary. I am sure that the House will consider that a desirable alteration. So much for the Recorders of Liverpool and Manchester.
By Clause 1 (1, b) of the Bill, the salary of county court judges is to be increased from £2,800 to £3,750. County court judges bear a heavy responsibility and, as the House knows, their jurisdiction was recently considerably enlarged. They have a great deal of work to do and I should be surprised if anyone were opposed to this increase. Subsection (1, c) makes a corresponding increase in the salary of the Chief Metropolitan


Magistrate, raising it also from £2,800 to £3,750. Subsection (1, d) increases the salary of other Metropolitan magistrates from £2,500 to £3,400. The effect of subsections (2) and (3) of Clause 1 is that these increases will take effect from 18th April last, or from the date of appointment, whichever is the later.
I should draw the attention of the House to the provisions in Clause 1 (4). This provides that if it becomes necessary to make any further increase in the salaries of these judicial officers, it can be done without legislation. As in the last Bill, the power is limited to increases; there is no possibility of using this machinery for a reduction. If the subsection is approved, the Lord Chancellor may, with the consent of the Treasury, make an Order increasing the salary of any of the offices to which I have referred, but no such Order will be effective unless a draft Order has first been approved by a Resolution of each House of Parliament; so that the House retains full Parliamentary control.
I hope that this provision will be welcomed. I am sure it will be welcomed by those who were promised these increases last April and who have had to wait for them until this Bill has passed through Parliament. As I have said, they have not yet received these increases. The pressure of Parliamentary business—the passage of the Finance Bill and other matters—has made it impossible to deal with the Bill before today. The effect of this provision will be to ensure that further increases, should further increases be justified, are not delayed by the need for the passage of legislation.
I think that I have drawn the attention of the House to the main proposals of the Bill. It is a comparatively short Bill, it is drafted, I suggest, with great clarity, and I commend it to the House.

4.1 p.m.

Sir Frank Soskice: I can reply quite shortly to the speech of the learned Attorney-General by saying that we on this side of the House think that the provisions of the Bill are well justified. We recognise the extremely important jurisdiction vested in the three classes of judges referred to in the Bill, and we think that the increases which the Bill proposes are appropriate in their cases.
I do not think there are any comments that I should like to make individually

on the Clauses of the Bill. The pensions provisions would also seem to be appropriate, geared as they are to the increases in salaries, though bearing the same fractional proportion, as I understand the speech of the learned Attorney-General. I hope that the House will agree to give this Bill a Second Reading.

4.2 p.m.

Sir Lionel Heald: There is one matter on which I should like to ask the assistance of my right hon. and learned Friend, as it is one which has been causing some concern to those interested.
I refer to the date at which the increases come into force, which not only affects the actual increase itself, but also has a substantial effect from the point of view of pension, particularly in the case of a magistrate whose pension is calculated, as I understand, on a three-year basis, with the result that a difference of a year in the date of the application of the increase is a matter of very substantial importance. There was, in fact, and I think it is generally known, what was regarded as a certain amount of delay in the granting of these increases. Of course, one has to have some date, but the date to which my right hon. and learned Friend referred is, in fact, the date upon which I asked a Question and it was answered.
It is a rather remarkable fact—I think I am right about this; I have done my best to check it—that in the case of the Masters of the Supreme Court, and also in the case of the recent Civil Service increases, which did not require legislation, they were back-dated to 1st April, 1956. It seems to me to be rather a striking fact that that date—1st April, 1956—was regarded as appropriate in these cases, but, in the cases of magistrates and county court judges, where legislation is required, it is considered sufficient to make the increases effective from 18th April this year. When we realise that this affects the pension, it becomes a serious matter indeed.
If any of the magistrates concerned, particularly magistrates who are affected by the three-year principle, retire in the three years which follow from 18th April, 1957, they will be affected by this difference in date. Similarly, if one of them was forced to retire because of ill-health, he would certainly be affected


and would not be able to stay on for the extra time to get over the difficulty of the expiry of the period. I understand that there are five of the present magistrates who have done twenty years' service, and who would, therefore, be in a position to retire now.
I would ask my right hon. and learned Friend whether this matter has been appreciated, and particularly the difference between these judicial officers, who, as everyone recognises, do work of immense importance. These county court judges and magistrates are the people, I suppose, who are more closely in contact with the ordinary man in the street, both in London and in other parts of the country, than anyone else. They have very difficult work to do, they are much respected, and one feels that they ought at least to be given the same treatment as civil servants.
The Masters of the Supreme Court also do important work and, there again, it has been just as difficult to understand why they are to be placed on a different basis. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will be able to explain this matter. If there is not an explanation, I feel that it would be only reasonable to expect that the necessary adjustments should be made. Even if they could not be made in relation to salaries, which would not seem to be a very generous point of view to take, it does seem to me that they ought to be possible in the case of pensions.

4.5 p.m.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: As hon. Members may recall, I have twice, when the Leader of the House has been announcing the business for the following week, asked when we were to have this Bill before the House, and I was very glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was able to reassure us that this money had not yet been paid out.
I am not discussing the merits of the Bill, but I believe that it is very undesirable from a constitutional point of view that money should be paid out before Parliamentary sanction has been received. I therefore hope that in future, whenever any similar increases are pending, the Government will try to see that the House is given an opportunity of indicating its approval before a public announcement is made like that some time ago, which

led many of us to believe that in this case people were actually receiving increases in remuneration before this House had approved the expenditure.

4.7 p.m.

The Attorney-General: If I may have the leave of the House, may I say in answer to the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) that no announcement was made that these increases would be paid on and after the 18th April. I am sorry if the point was not made clear. It was an announcement that the increases would be with effect from 18th April. I think that most of us understood the point—that they were being given something to look forward to, but not to receive immediately. I do not think that I have to defend the Government's action in this behalf. The Bill provides for payment, but until it is passed payment cannot be made.
In answer to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald), I would say that the increases which could be made without legislation were made immediately—the increases to the Scottish judicial officers, which did not require legislation. Nor did the increases in the salaries of the Masters and others to whom my right hon. and learned Friend referred require legislation. The announcement was made on 18th April, and I think I am right in saying that it is not very usual to make retrospective increases of salaries. In this Bill we have made provision for the payments to take effect as from 18th April, when the public announcement was made, it is true, in Answer to a Written Question in this House.
It would be a departure from the principle which, I think, is fairly well recognised if the payment of salaries, in cases in which payment has to be provided for by legislation, was made retrospective to a date before the date on which this House was informed of the changes which were proposed to be made, and without this House having any opportunity at all of expressing an opinion.
While I appreciate my right hon. and learned Friend's desire to secure the same date in all cases, that is to say, 1st April, 1956, which is the date from which the increases were given in the cases of the Masters and some other officers, in which legislation was not required, I cannot hold out any hope that that can be done


or would be done by this Bill. These increases will, in fact, date from the same date as that of the increases to the Scottish judicial officers.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Legh.]

Committee Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — JUDICIAL OFFICES (SALARIES AND PENSIONS) [MONEY]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees). —[Queen's Recommendation signified.]

[Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for increasing the salaries of the recorders of Liverpool and Manchester, of county court judges and of metropolitan police magistrates, it is expedient to authorise;—
(a) any increase in the sums payable out of the Consolidated Fund which may be directly or indirectly attributable to any provisions of the said Act providing for—
(i) increases, as from any date not earlier than the eighteenth day of April, nineteen hundred and fifty-seven, in the salaries of the said recorders, judges and magistrates;
(ii) the calculation of the pensions payable to the said recorders by reference to their increased salaries;
(b) any increase attributable to any provisions of the said Act in the sums payable into the Exchequer under subsection (2) of section ten of the Criminal Justice Administration Act, l956.—[Mr. Powell.]

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — MINISTERIAL SALARIES BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

4.11 p.m.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The purpose of this Bill is to change the salaries of certain Ministers and to give effect to what the Prime Minister announced on Thursday last. Later today the House will be discussing that part of the proposals which relates to Members of the House and of another place. I shall confine myself to the ministerial side, with which the Bill deals.
The pattern of ministerial salaries was laid down in the Ministers of the Crown Act, 1937 and modified by the Ministerial Salaries Act, 1946. For the first time, in 1937, in a Bill the pattern of salaries was comprehensively laid down, for the Prime Minister at £10,000, for Ministers of Cabinet rank at £5,000, for other Ministers at £3,000, for Parliamentary Secretaries at £1,500 and for junior Lords of the Treasury at £1,000. Those salaries had themselves been determined many years earlier. It was in 1851 that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury had his salary —on a reduction at that time, curiously enough—fixed at £2,000 and in 1831 the Parliamentary Under-Secretary's salary was fixed at £1,500, so that there has certainly been an element of stability to those figures.
Obviously, they are worth very much less than when they were originally granted. I have been answering a number of Questions in recent months showing £3,000, or £2,000, or £1,500 would he worth now compared with 1937. On the basis of a married man with two children, the Answers were £815, £661 and £574, after allowing for £500 of Parliamentary salary which was drawn by junior Ministers. I do not think that I need elaborate that point. The House and the country are probably prepared to accept the case for some increase in Ministerial salaries as proven. All I need to do is to explain the precise provisions of the Bill.
The arrangements proposed are that a Minister at £3,000 should have his salary increased by £750. The only point I need make here is that it is proposed that the Financial and Economic Secretaries to the Treasury should be raised to the same salary level as a Minister of State. I think that that will probably be acceptable to the House. Successive Chancellors of the Exchequer, if they were to do their job efficiently, of necessity have had to put a very large amount of work on the other Ministers in the Treasury and the work and the responsibility of the work justifies their being elevated in this way. Parliamentary Secretaries at £1,500 and other holders of office at £1,200 or £1,000 a year all receive £1,000 increase. The changes are effective from 1st July.
Clause 1 of the Bill authorises the salary changes. Clause 2 relates to the amount of parliamentary pay to be


drawn by Ministers. The Act of 1937 barred Ministers from drawing any salary as a Member of Parliament. That bar was eased to some extent by the Act of 1946, which allowed a junior Minister to draw £500 a year of his parliamentary salary. All the Bill does is to remove the bar altogether so that we might decide that when we discuss the Resolution dealing with the salary of Members of Parliament, which we are to do later this afternoon. That does not need to be pursued further in the context of the Bill. In future it will no longer be fixed by Statute.
Clause 3 deals with the case of Ministers who may suffer accident or other risks arising from their duties. It has long been the practice to compensate servants of the Crown whose capacity has been impaired by injury or disease suffered in the discharge of their duties. As the House will recall, that is done under the Injury Warrant in Section 41 of the Superannuation Act, 1949, and it has always been a little incongruous that among the servants of the Crown Ministers have not been included.
Under these arrangements, they will be treated precisely upon the same basis as any other servant of the Crown. That is to say, if they suffer an injury or disease in the discharge of their duties, they will get the same compensation as other servants of the Crown, although, of course, not if they are merely about their own private business. Although it is outside the context of the Bill, when we are considering the position of Ministers of the Crown, I should mention that we have been giving some thought to what might be done for Members of Parliament in the same position.
It looks as though a scheme can be devised which would cover Members of the House when they were travelling on the business of the House—again, like Ministers, not on their private business or discharging their duties in their constituencies, but when travelling, as Members very often do, either in this country or abroad, by air or other means. It looks as though it may well be possible to devise some insurance cover for them in matters of that kind. I mention it a little outside the context of the Bill, but simply to show that while considering the position of Ministers, we have also been considering

the position of ordinary Members of the House at the same time.

Mr. Frank Bowles: Is there any possibility of making any coverage retrospective?

Mr. Thorneycroft: No, Sir. I do not think that it is possible to make it retrospective, but if the hon. Member has a case in mind perhaps he would like to talk to me about it.
Those are the purposes of the Bill, that the salaries of Ministers of State shall be increased by £750, that Ministers of a salary ranking below that—that is, Parliamentary Secretaries, Government Whips and junior Lords of the Treasury—shall have their salaries increased by £1,000, that the question of the extent to which a Minister should draw his parliamentary salary in his capacity as a Member of Parliament—for he still remains that and has his duties to perform—should no longer be governed by Statute, but by Resolution of the House, with which we can deal a little later, and that Ministers of the Crown should be treated like other Crown servants if they suffer accident or injury in the discharge of their duties.

4.20 p.m.

Mr. Harold Wilson: I think that the Chancellor has adequately and amply commended the Bill to the House, and that he can be assured that it will be well received in all parts of the Chamber. What is being done for junior Ministers generally is something which has long been conceded as necessary, and I am sure that none of us wants to see an able Member, in any party, feeling that he has to turn down junior ministerial office on grounds which we have reason to think have been all too familiar in the past.
I should have thought that the elevation of the positions of Economic Secretary and Financial Secretary to the level of Minister of State was highly reason able. That does not involve any commentary on the adequacy or otherwise of the present incumbents of those offices, and certainly nothing I say in referring to that should be taken as implying any comments either way. The position is undoubtedly one of very considerable responsibility, and I do not think that there is any doubt that, in terms of their duties, they have been undergraded, so far as finance is any guide, compared, for instance, with the


Minister of State, Board of Trade, and the numerous Ministers of State at the Foreign Office.
Until 1946, for example—indeed, until the present Government came into power —the Secretary of State for Overseas Trade was financially on the same basis as the Financial Secretary. Since 1952, of course, we have had the Minister of State, Board of Trade doing very largely the work of the former Secretary for Overseas Trade, and it has been anomalous that the Economic Secretary and the Financial Secretary—whose duties are, if anything, even more considerable—should have been on a lower grade. We certainly welcome that provision.
Again, I should have thought that most people would consider the parliamentary allowance to senior Ministers to be fair. It has always seemed to me a gross anomaly that a Minister who is a Member of the House not only received no additional parliamentary remuneration but was not allowed to offset against his ministerial salary a single penny of his expenditure in the fufilment of his parliamentary duties, and some of those, perhaps professional or business people in the country who may have been a little critical of this proposal would be astounded if they themselves were treated in the same way.
It is a fact, of course, that nobody can be a Minister unless he is either a Member of this House or a Member of another place. The number of Members of another place who can be Ministers is, fortunately, limited by Statute. Therefore, by far the larger number of Ministers must be Members of this House. It seems quite wrong that the essential expenditure that they have to incur in being Members of this House, whether on postage to their constituents, travelling in their constituencies, or all the other expenses with which hon. Members are so familiar, should be a deduction from the ministerial salary, because the ministerial salary could not continue if those drawing it ceased to be Members of the House.
There is one point at which I hope the Chancellor will look again between now and the Committee stage of the Bill. Many people think it rather anomalous that, in this present day and age, there should be in the list of Ministers printed

in the beginning of every volume of HANSARD, and elsewhere, the rather anomalous and, perhaps, unhappy creatures, the Assistant Whips, unpaid. I think that it is wrong that these members of the rather grim and silent service which all of us know so well—silent, I should say, so far as their parliamentary performances are concerned—should not be included in the list of paid Ministers.
I wonder whether it might be possible for the Chancellor to think about this before we reach the Committee stage and, perhaps, take soundings about it in various parts of the House. There seems to be gross discrimination between Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, who are paid, and the Assistant Whips—of whom there are, I believe, four at present. Again, I say this without reference to the present incumbents because, quite frankly, when I look at the Front Bench opposite I do not know which are Lords Commissioners of the Treasury and which are Assistant Whips.
The right hon. Gentleman referred —again, I am sure, with the approval of the whole House—to the provision to extend to Ministers the arrangements already made for compensation or insurance of Crown servants in respect of death, injury, accident or disease in the fulfilment of their duties. This Bill limits the provisions to which the Chancellor referred to persons holding office in Her Majesty's Government as it applies to persons employed in a civil capacity for the purpose of that Government.
The right hon. Gentleman appeared to answer the anxiety of a number of hon. Members when he said that consideration had been given to the extension of this provision to hon. Members who are not Ministers. I would take it that when he referred to this he had in mind hon. Members travelling, for instance, on the work of this House—Select Committees, hon. Members travelling to the Council of Europe, or travelling under the aegis of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, or of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. I do not know whether or not he had this in mind, but I hope that he will tell us.
I hope that he will also tell us whether he is considering journeys which have recently been very much in mind, where hon. Members, on the invitation of the Government, travel abroad—sometimes


with Service facilities—to see the work of the Services abroad. The Chancellor said that it was very much in mind, but I was not sure whether he meant there was to be an Amendment introduced later this week—whether other legislation will be necessary, or whether it can be done without legislation. I gather from his indication that it can be done without legislation.
I hope that it will be possible to make a full statement about that, because I am sure that all hon. Members will want to know exactly what kind of journeys will be covered. Subject to that, I am sure that the whole House will want to endorse the Second Reading of this Bill.

4.27 p.m.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: This Bill is called the Ministerial Salaries Bill. On the back appear the names of four Ministers, the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Financial Secretary. Before reading the Bill, one would have thought, in view of its title and of the names of those who back it, that it might, perhaps, deal with more than one of those four. In fact, as far as I can see, it makes no provision for the raising of the salary of the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Home Secretary, who are now sitting in front of me. I would like to ask, "Why not?"
It seems to me quite wrong that when servants of the Crown are to be rewarded according to the weight of responsibility they bear, these very responsible posts, held by such important people who, from time to time, have to give orders to people under them who are paid far more than they under the new regulations relating to the permanent Civil Service, should not carry increased salaries. I simply cannot see why their salaries should not be increased to keep them in harmony with the rest of the scale of public servants all round.
We have, rightly, approved the raising of the salaries of judges. We have only today approved of the raising of the salary of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Some time ago, the salaries of the higher civil servants were raised, and under my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer there are many men who are paid far more than he. What is the reason for this, other than modesty—and, I suggest, really a false modesty?

If, in fact, power and responsibility are regarded in this world, as they still are, according to the way in which people are remunerated, and if Ministers are serving the Queen, as they all are, why should not their greater responsibility and power be acknowledged without this modesty which, I suggest again, is really false?

4.29 p.m.

Mr. Desmond Donnelly: I want to endorse what has just been said by the hon. Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) and to add this. An anomaly in the which has not been mentioned before is that relating to the expenses of Ministers in the discharge of their ministerial duties. I know that they have expenses as hon. Members, and that they also have expenses in relation to their ministerial duties. Each of the Government Departments has a small hospitality fund available for the Ministers of the Crown, but those funds are so small that they are really of no practical value to the Minister in the discharge of his duties. Very often when a Minister has to entertain somebody in his official capacity he has to do it out of his own pocket. In no other walk of life would such a thing have to happen. There is no provision either through Income Tax rebates, or in the Bill, to correct that.
A number of right hon. Gentlemen have to travel about this country in the discharge of their duties. They have a limited and very modest scale available for them. They have their train fares paid, and I think that they have a certain per diem allowance, but that very often does not meet the expenses entailed when they travel about the country. That ought to be put right, and I join with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) in saying that this is a question of priorities affecting our public servants.
The Prime Minister, in his announcement the other day, referred to the chairmen of the nationalised boards, and although that reference is beyond the context of the Bill, it is, nevertheless, relevant to the whole problem of the remuneration of our senior public servants. I know of a chief technical officer of a regional authority of a nationalised industry who was promoted to the deputy-chairmanship of his board. Thereby he had to lose £2,000 per annum—


because of the promotion he received. I think that we have to get our priorities right as they affect our senior public servants.
In the Communist countries they have this sense of priority aright, and they are prepared much more readily to pay the rate for the job. [An HON. MEMBER: "Danger money."] It is one of the few things they have got right.

Mr. H. Wilson: Can my hon. Friend say whether there is compensation for loss of office as well?

Mr. Donnelly: No. Nor is there compensation for injury in the course of office.
However, the practical matter is that we ought to have a system whereby people who accept office are, at the end of their period of office, personally no poorer as the result of their service to the community. We ought to aim at that, and I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to look again at this question of the expenses of Ministers in the discharge of their ministerial functions.

4.32 p.m.

Mr. Julian Snow: I would emphasise some words spoken just now by my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) on the question of junior Whips. I do not think that many hon. Members realise that there is a large degree of sacrifice involved in the work of unpaid junior Whips. I think I am right in saying that there are four or five junior Lords of the Treasury and three Members of this House who are also members of Her Majesty's Household, and then there are three or four unpaid Whips, whose work is just as important, and whose silence in the House makes life for them sometimes intolerable.
Nevertheless, their function is most important. I cannot believe that it is beyond possibility to find some other sinecure jobs for them which would just as well enable them to be Assistant Whips. In their present posts they do no scrutinising for the Treasury at all. There is only one member of Her Majesty's Household of those three who does a job, and he is the Vice-Chamberlain, and I shall have a word to say about him in a moment. I think that the situation should be reconsidered, to see whether the unpaid junior Whips ought not to receive some sort of financial help.
As I say, the Vice-Chamberlain of the Household is the only one of the three members of the Household who is also a Member of this House who does a job at all, and it is a very hard one, as I know, having at one time been the Vice-Chamberlain myself. He has to work all the afternoon rather harder than anybody else does in the House, transcribing notes containing information and views and opinions, and expressing them in easily understood English. His position ought to be made somewhat better than it is at the moment.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Bryan.]

Committee Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — MINISTERIAL SALARIES [MONEY]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees). [Queen's Recommendation signified.]

[Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision with respect to the salaries of certain Ministers and of the Leader of the Opposition, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament and the charging on and payment out of the Consolidated Fund of any sums payable out of moneys so provided or chargeable on and payable out of that Fund, as the case may be, by virtue of the provisions of the said Act of the present Session—
(a) increasing as from the first day of July, nineteen hundred and fifty-seven, the amount or maximum amount of the annual salaries authorised to be paid under the Ministers of the Crown Act, 1937, and other enactments regulating the salaries of the holders of Ministerial office, where that amount does not exceed three thousand pounds;
(b) removing, as from that date, certain restrictions imposed by the said Act of 1937 (as amended by subsequent enactments) upon the receipt of salaries or allowances in respect of membership of the House of Commons, and upon the payment of pensions under section four of that Act to persons who are in receipt of such salaries or allowances;
(c) applying to persons holding office in Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom the provisions of section forty-one of the Superannuation Act, 1949.—[Mr. Powell.]

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — PARLIAMENTARY REMUNERATION AND EXPENSES

4.36 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): I beg to move,
That, in the opinion of this House, it is expedient that provision should be made, as from the first day of July, nineteen hundred and fifty-seven—
(a) for the payment to members of this House (in lieu of the salaries payable pursuant to the Resolution of this House of 29th May, 1946, and of the sessional allowances for expenses) of the following salaries and allowances, that is to say—
(i) in the case of all members except officers of this House, members in receipt of a salary as holders of Ministerial office within the meaning of section two of the House of Commons Disqualification Act. 1957, and members in receipt of any other salary payable under the Ministers of the Crown Act, 1937, or of any pension payable under that Act, a salary at the rate of one thousand pounds a year; and
(ii) in the case of all members, an allowance in respect of their Parliamentary expenses at the rate of seven hundred and fifty pounds a year;
(b) for enabling members of the House of Lords (except the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chairman of Committees and any member in receipt of a salary as the holder of a Ministerial office within the meaning of the said section two or of a salary payable out of moneys provided by Parliament under the Ministerial Salaries Act, 1946) to recover out of sums voted for the expenses of that House (in addition to the costs of travel for which provision is made pursuant to the said Resolution of this House) any expenses certified by them as incurred for the purpose of attendance at sittings of that House or of Committees of that House, other than sittings for judicial business, within a maximum of three guineas for each day of such attendance.
It is customary for the House to debate and express its views on such matters following upon a Resolution, and the Motion before the House is in accordance with precedent established in 1911, when salaries for Members were first introduced. As hon. Members will remember, that salary was then £400. This precedent was followed in 1937, when the salary was raised to £600, and again in 1946, when it was increased to £1,000. If the House accepts the Motion, which I am moving on behalf of the Prime Minister, it will, of course, be followed by the necessary Supplementary Estimate.
No doubt hon. Members will have followed closely the terms of the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and hon. Members appear in a mood to be well satisfied of the need for the proposed improvement in their remuneration. For some time now the case has been accepted by the Government. I should like to remind the House that it was twelve months ago, on 12th July, 1956, when the then Prime Minister said:
I will not deny—I do not deny—that some increase in the salary of Members would be justified now"—
that was a year ago—
if there were not certain special considerations…—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th July, 1956; Vol. 556, c. 624.]
Leaving aside that statement, which, I think, was prudent at the time, we can, therefore, take the case as proven and confine ourselves to the terms of the Motion, which I shall mention particularly to avoid any misunderstanding which might arise.
I would say a word about the size of the allowance. The Select Committee on Members' Expenses, which reported in 1953, and to whose Chairman, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies), I should like to pay a tribute, said that the average expenses of a Member were £750 per annum. This figure was provided by the Inland Revenue; it was, in fact, the average of all Members, and a scientific figure. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis) on 4th July, the corresponding figure today is about £880.
It will be remembered that the recommendation of the Select Committee was for a salary of £1,500, and I think, therefore, that hon. Members would agree that, given the increase in the average expenses to which I have just made reference, the figure of £1,750 which the Government have chosen is in tune with the general recommendation of our own Select Committee.
This Motion is in two parts, paragraphs —(a, i) and (a, ii) and (b). Paragraph (a, i) preserves the salary of £1,000 a year for those Members hitherto entitled to it, but it abolishes the salary of £500 a year now paid to certain Members. Therefore, we clear that out of the way. This is because all Members, including


Ministers, will receive under our proposals the new £750 a year. It should be known well here, and I wish it were better known outside, in the country, that all Members, whether Ministers or not, have parliamentary expenses of greater or less amount, and it is right that all should have the benefit of the additional £750 a year which has been proposed, with those expenses in mind.
When I was Chancellor of the Exchequer I had to go through all this matter and I am probably as well acquainted with it as anybody living. I had a great deal of trouble with it in my time and I am only too thankful that we have a solution now that is nearer to what are the facts of the case.
People outside should realise that Members have no employer and that they cannot credit expenses against their employment as so many people outside can do. They have to provide their own cars when travelling in their constituencies, and their own secretaries, and when they sit in an overcrowded room, over-looking the river here, and answer their correspondence they have to provide their own stamps. I do not think that any of these things are realised.
More important still to North Country Members, irrespective of party and purse, there is the great difficulty of leaving one's family at home and coming to London and finding that hotel expenses in London have been recently increased and having to keep up not only two homes, but two living allowances, for one's family at home and for oneself.
Anyone who lives in this building and treats it, as it is supposed to be, as the best club in the world cannot be at all human unless he understands that in this club there has been a great deal of sacrifice on the part of Members who are heads of families. The more these facts are realised outside the House, the better. As Leader of the House, I should like all people to realise that in making these recommendations we have regard to the very genuine expense borne by hon. Members. I hope that the passing of the Motion will mean that we shall achieve a certain degree of justice to hon. Members and their families.
Paragraph (a, ii), which is the main part of the Motion, provides that all Members, and I emphasise all Members without exception, shall receive additional

remuneration in respect of their parliamentary expenses at the rate of £750 a year. In fact, this £750 will be a straightforward addition to salary. The fact that it is equal to the figure of average expenses quoted by the Select Committee must not lead hon. Members to believe that it is an expense allowance and as such exempted from taxation.
We do not want people outside the House to think that. It is not true, as we shall find when we are asked for the tax by the Inland Revenue. I am assured by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer that for taxation purposes the Inland Revenue will consider it as part of the salary and taxable. Therefore, it comes to this—that hon. Members will have a total remuneration of £1,750 and will claim their allowable expenses as hitherto against that sum, which is a matter for the Inland Revenue, and then pay tax on the balance. This £750, therefore, all goes into that conglomerate sum, but it will take the place of the Sessional allowance.
I am personally glad that the Sessional allowance has gone, although I introduced it myself. The Government recognise that the introduction of the Sessional allowance was only a partial and temporary remedy, which left the total emoluments appreciably below what our own Select Committee proposed. We feel that our proposals now put the remuneration of Members on a satisfactory basis and as such we wholly commend them to the House. I feel that the work of the country will be better done if this arrangement is ratified and approved by the House today.
Paragraph (b) of the Motion provides for the reimbursement of Members of another place—to which we always refer in that way with great discretion and dignity—of any expenses certified by them as incurred for the purpose of attendance at sittings or Committees, other than sittings for judicial business, within a maximum of three guineas for each day of such attendance. It may seem extraordinary that it is necessary to introduce here such a proposal for Members of another place, because it is always supposed that once a person is a lord he is very rich and very often in a very excitable condition; but that is not the case.
There are people who have gone to another place who are no better off than


we are. If they left this House in circumstances no better than those of some hon. Members here, there is no reason why, just by the fact of being made peers, they become any richer. Many of them perform most valuable services to the community and to the conduct of the bicameral system, and that depends on Members of another place having some support.
The Government made their views known as long ago as 7th November, when the then Lord President of the Council said in another place that we could not expect people to do their duty if we did not make it possible for them financially to perform that duty. The essence of the new arrangement is that a peer is to be reimbursed expenses which he incurs in connection with attendances at the House of Lords. He claims his actual expenses, except that he will not be able to claim more than three guineas for each sitting day. Each peer will have to certify from time to time that, in connection with a specified number of attendances, he has incurred such and such expenses.
As announced in the Press today and in the HANSARD of another place, it will be seen that plans will be made between the parties in another place, through the usual channels, to ensure that such arrangements are duly and properly kept. I am satisfied that such commonsense arrangements will work. The certificate will be accepted without vouching of any kind, which, I think, is the only way of doing these things. There will be no question of producing bills or any other evidence, which, I think, would be undignified.
The expenses which may be included in the claim are all out-of-pocket expenses due to attendance at the House, other than the cost of rail travel, which is already separately reimbursed. The claims can, therefore, cover not only subsistence costs—such as hotel charges and meals—but also miscellaneous travelling costs such as taxi fares and bus fares, if a peer goes on a bus, or the cost of any other form of transport. The arrangement, therefore, will cover what amounts to only a daily allowance to our distinguished brethren in another place.
We wish in many ways that we could have made it more, but we have had

to pay attention to the normal amount of expense allowance drawn by people on official public duty, and if we had gone higher than that amount it would have been essential to enter the realm of a tax allowance. If we keep to this amount, it is unnecessary, in comparison with the equivalent allowance to persons on official public duty, to enter into that realm and we think it the best way of satisfying the Inland Revenue, and, we hope, of satisfying the peers.
A Resolution has been passed in another place endorsing the principle of the reimbursement of actual expenses incurred. In view of the working of our Constitution and of the service rendered by the noble Lords in another place, I hope that the House will think it reasonable to endorse it. As I have said, the Motion is in two parts, one in relation to the House of Commons and one in relation to another place. I feel sure that it will give satisfaction to hon. Members to feel that there is a general degree of endorsement of this suggestion.
I would only say, in conclusion, that I have heard it said outside that if we are to do this then we must all be certain that we try our best, in whatever place we sit in this House, to ensure that the money which is being allocated today is maintained at its proper value.
While this is not an occasion for me to launch into an economic debate, and while I am now more engaged in human nature than I am in economics, it might be wise for me to conclude my short oration on this subject by saying that I feel all hon. Members will be dedicated to the task of countering any inflationary tendencies which may reduce the value of this money and of the value of the money of people outside who live on fixed incomes, on pensions, or by other means, and who depend so much upon our ministrations.
If we dedicate ourselves universally to that task, I feel that we shall be just in allocating this proportion to ourselves.

4.51 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Gaitskell: I rise to support the Motion moved by the Leader of the House. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out that there was really no need to argue the case for an increase in the remuneration of hon. Members because this had already been


conceded a year ago by the then Prime Minister. I agree with him. Nevertheless I was glad that in the course of his remarks he emphasised the heavy expenses which have to be incurred by hon. Members, and the very real hardship from which some of them have been suffering during recent years.
I have little doubt myself that as a result of the failure of parliamentary remuneration to keep pace with the rise in the cost of living over the past ten years there has been hardship. There has definitely been a decline in the efficiency of Parliament, for reasons of which I think we are all aware, and I believe that if this had gone on, and if the matter had not been dealt with, it would have begun to affect the quality of the persons who seek to enter this House, and that would certainly be a very bad thing for British democracy.
It may be said by some that the proposal we are considering is to increase the remuneration to a higher level than that proposed by the Select Committee on Members' Expenses three and a half years ago. As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, the Select Committee suggested a figure of £1,500 and the proposal in the Motion is £1,750. To that query I would say three things. First, there has been since 1954 a substantial increase in the cost of living and, according to my information, if we sought to fix a figure equivalent in real terms to what £1,500 was in 1954, it would be £1,695 today.
Secondly, hon. Members will recall that the recommendation of the Select Committee for an increase to £1,500 was tied to the proposal for a non-contributory pension. I will read the relative passage in the report:
This being so, Your Committee, despite the arguments which may be adduced in favour of a more substantial increase, based on the much heavier work and responsibilities which today fall upon Members, and on the much more generous arrangements existing overseas, consider that in all the circumstances, and on the understanding that their recommendation for a pension scheme is definitely linked with it, the increase should be one which will bring the annual payment to Members to £1,500.…
Well, we are not having a noncontributory pension scheme, and I have no desire or intention of entering into that question this afternoon. However, it is worth mentioning to show that the figure

of £1,750 is also justified on that account. One must add that, although we would all join with the Home Secretary in expressing the hope that there will be no further decline in the value of money, it would be foolish to deny the possibility of this happening, and we are only too well aware of the difficulty there is in adjusting parliamentary salaries when that arises.
Reference has been made to the amount paid to Members of Parliament in other countries, and it is as well that the public should know that even with this increase the amount that hon. Members are to receive here is still substantially below what is paid in most parts of the world. The United States Congressmen receive a basic income of £8,000, and substantial expenses as well. In France, the deputies receive £1,000, together with something like £1,100 for expenses of various kinds. In Germany, the basic income is £1,450 and expenses £900. In Australia, the basic income is £1,750 and expenses of varying amounts from £400 to £900. So I do not think we need reproach ourselves that in supporting this Motion we are voting for ourselves a figure which is unduly extravagant in comparison with what Parliaments in other countries receive.
There is one other thing I want to mention before I sit down. I believe that the whole House will agree with me when I say that we are very reluctant to discuss our own salaries. We have all been embarrassed by having to raise the matter in recent years. For my part, I would welcome a system by which this was not necessary. I have no desire—indeed, it would probably be out of order—to enlarge the scope of the debate, but speaking for myself, I think that in due course we ought to consider the possibility either of relating the payment of Members of Parliament to some other salary which is paid in some official capacity or to the possibility of an outside tribunal considering the matter from time to time. I realise that there may be differences of opinion on this, but when one remembers the difficulties which we have encountered in the last years, I believe that this should now be looked at.
In conclusion, I turn to the other part of the Motion, that dealing with payment of expenses to noble Lords. It is important, in view of certain statements


that have appeared in the Press, that it should be realised that this is a pure reimbursement of expenses. There is no question of simply claiming this amount automatically. The words in the statement of the Prime Minister are clear:
The Government now propose to allow Members of the other House to claim a reimbursement up to a maximum of £3 3s. for each day of attendance. This payment will be a reimbursement of actual expenses arising out of unpaid service and will, therefore, not be liable to tax."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 4th July, 1957; Vol. 572, c. 1317.]
I do not think that the Government could have done less than this. It is well known to many of us that certain noble Lords, among whom are old colleagues of ours, have been finding it extremely difficult to carry on their duties without any payment to recompense them for their expenses. I think that the proposal for a payment of this kind up to a maximum of £3 3s. is reasonable. I was glad, too, that the Leader of the House referred to the expense allowance normally paid to members of Royal Commissions and bodies of that kind. It is in that light we should regard the allowances which are now proposed.
For all these reasons, therefore, I hope that the House will support the Motion moved by the right hon. Gentleman.

4.59 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Pickthorn: I am very conscious of a difficult task to perform. Athanasius was right against the world—at least we are all bound to believe he was; but of course it is the easier to persuade ourselves of that because we are also all bound to admit that we do not know what he meant.
It may have seemed futile any time this fortnight, and longer, to resist the suggestion which is now before the House, and it may, even more easily, now seem fatuous to carp. It may very well seem, "This thing is to be done, indeed to all intents and purposes is done—best to say nothing about it."
I think that there are reasons why something more should be said. The House of Commons should not without debate allow anything to pass that is not beyond question, and I do not think that those who are most enthusiastic in their unanimity on this matter can really regard this as beyond question.
In this special matter there are other considerations too. One is the delicacy to which there have been frequent references. No doubt other hon. Gentlemen besides myself have, though I hope no other so often as myself, found themselves in situations of delicacy, and no doubt their experience will agree with mine, that in situations of delicacy above all others plain speaking is necessary.
Further—and to this point I think I would not have done more than refer had it not been for the Motion about the House of Lords—there is the matter of the procedure. I was very glad to hear almost the last words—the penultimate paragraph, I think—of the Leader of the Opposition about finding another way of doing this in future. I am sure we ought. If it is not too dogmatic to say so, I would say I am sure we ought to begin by looking at the procedure by which we do this, the procedure on which we are now engaged.
I would make bold to bet that there are not two people now in the Chamber —I am not one—who could stand cross-examination on this procedure, and that there is not one, possibly omitting the Clerks, who understands exactly how and why this procedure came into existence. What is happening is that we have a Motion, then a Supplementary Estimate and then a reference, a very hidden reference—there was one year when it was not so hidden; only one; in 1911—in the Appropriations Bill.
I think I am getting it right. I think I am right in saying that nothing else has ever been done in at all the same way except one thing, and for that also I think nobody really understands the position, even right hon. Gentlemen opposite. The only other thing done in this was the payment of police expenses, and a Select Committee of this House reported in 1949, I think it was, that it was highly anomalous and irregular and ought not to be done that way, whereupon a special Measure, the Miscellaneous Financial Provisions Act, 1950, was passed to make, so to speak, "an honest woman" of the police.
But we have never made "an honest woman" of ourselves in the same way, and I think we are all hoping that what we are doing today we are doing for some considerable time. When one does


something that one hopes will last a considerable time, one generally forgets all about it meanwhile. That is why I think it is worth wearying the House with these technical details at the beginning of my speech, because I think these technical matters ought to be carefully inquired into soon and not left until the time comes again when it is said to be urgent to save some hon. Members from actual hardship and, it may be, hunger. It ought to be looked at really soon, and that is another reason why I think this Motion should not pass without something being said now.
We talk a great deal about democracy. I have never disguised from the House of Commons, if the House has bothered to look, or from my constituents, that I am more attached to parliamentary Government than I am to democratic Government, but, parliamentary Government having become democratic Government, I ant all for keeping it democratic, being a Conservative. But its being parliamentary Government gives rise to my primary attachement.
What is the method? The method is that the party which gets the largest majority shall have the Prime Minister and other Ministers selected from it, and more or less in accord with its more or less manifest preferences. But, of course, when comes to Ministers wishing to do something in a field in which it is obvious that their opponents would go even further, that their opponents are even more inclined to do it, at that moment those who are in support of Ministers become impotent and have no control over them at that moment.
It is necessary therefore, I think, that Ministers should be reminded when they do something more agreeable to a higher proportion of hon. Gentlemen opposite than to all those on this side of the House that, much as they may dislike it, and preposterous as the democratic or even the parliamentary system may be. Ministers are really there to please me and not to please right hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition Front Bench. I do not mean me in particular, but the likes of me. I think they ought to be reminded of this upon these occasions, and that is another reason why I think something should be said about this now.
I wish next to state, succinctly I hope, my main thesis, and then I shall permit

myself, because we are early, to try to develop it a little bit. My main thesis is that the most urgent duty of the House of Commons always is, and most plainly has been for the last twelve years, to sustain and control Her Majesty's Government against inflation and for sound currency and to persuade the world and the country that it is doing so. That is the primary duty of the House of Commons, and always was.
For the House of Commons before so persuading the world—and no one dare say that we yet have persuaded the world —to contract for its own Members out of the disadvantages of a depreciating currency is, in my submission, a mistake on a national scale and a mistake which might have the greatest consequences. I hope the House will bear with me, and I even hope that the House will a little help me in this matter. Hon. Members are fond enough of talking about the rights of minorities. Very few of them have ever made so difficult a speech in so small a minority as I am now making this. I hope the House will bear with me, therefore, and even help me if I develop that thesis a little.
I do not wish to go into the question whether hon. Members ought to have how many pounds or what their expenses are, although I am not to be taken as accepting the Select Committee on that or any other question as Holy Writ. I am not less willing than anyone that I should be given more money, and I hope that I am less willing than most, certainly than many hon. Gentlemen opposite seem to indicate when they are on platforms, to grudge other men getting more. The more they can get, so long as it is fairly honestly done, the better I shall be pleased. [Laughter.] I am doing my best to be dull. [An HON. MEMBER: "The hon. Member is succeeding."] I hope hon. Members will not make rude jokes. I have thought of a good many quite good jokes about right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, partly on the basis of their utterances on previous occasions, but I am trying to leave them all out in the hope of saving time and having a comparatively easy ride.
I have heard it said that provision for increased remuneration for hon. Members is so urgent that it is necessary to save the institution of Parliament. I have heard that said explicitly about the House of Commons and not quite so explicitly


about another place. It may be so; but even between necessities sometimes it is necessary to choose. One must not suppose, because I am sure Providence will not long let one, that all those things which one chooses to define as necessities, one can get simultaneously. That is not the way that the universe is arranged.
Suppose that there is also mortal danger to the £ and to defence, which are our two greatest concerns—greater than us. I hope that the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Gaitskell) will not mind my saying "greater than us"; if he looks at HANSARD he will see that he was a great deal worse at Question Time on Thursday. These are much the two greatest things, and, if they are two, they are two so inseparable that the life of neither can be preserved without the other.
Then, if protection for our national liberties, and freedom to be an international unit with a will of our own, and our prospect of feeding and employing on this island at least twice as many people as the island is designed for—if these things all depend upon defence of the currency, if these things are vital to national existence, and, it may be, to the personal existence of some millions of us before the next ten years have gone by, if so, then the preservation of Parliament, even, is a small matter compared with the preservation of England, "the Mother of Parliaments".

Mr. John Rankin: What about Scotland?

Mr. Pickthorn: I was quoting, and the quotation speaks of England as the Mother of Parliaments.
It is no good at all, upon that hypothesis, it is no good at all talking about democracy's need of well-paid professionals; for, whether democracy is to go on being here at all, to claim privileged pay or universal equality, individual freedom of earning and saving, or Socialism infinitely expanding taxation and public assistance—whichever the purpose, for neither purpose nor for any other would democracy long survive failure not only to preserve the £ but even to look as if it very much wanted to.
What has to be done is to show that we care more for that than we do for anything else, and, if I may say so, all

the arguments about the needs of hon. Members are really beside the point. If it is desired that incomes of hon. Members should be increased, there are two ways of doing it. One is by increasing the number of paper £s they may draw, and the other is by increasing the value of the £ or even by giving them that reasonable certainty that it will not very badly decrease which their fathers always had. So let us not think that, because additional pay is agreeable to us, or even requisite to Parliament, or conducive to democracy, all of which I might well admit—it is in order, all right—therefore we should vote for it today. What Her Majesty's Government are asking the House to vote is that it is expedient to do this, and what I am arguing is that the House has not really considered whether or not there are arguments on the other side. I am trying to indicate some of them.
If it is not helping the defence of the £, it may make the beginning of the end of Parliament and democracy and us. It is just over a year, I think, since Sir Anthony Eden sounded the tocsin and upreared the oriflamme for a rally to defend the £. It is rather less, I have forgotten how much less, since my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister proclaimed that "The Battle Against Inflation" was on. Is it still on? My right hon. Friend was much better entitled than most of those who use military metaphors, very much better entitled than most of the fighters for peace and warriors for freedom and militants for nationalisation; but he will remember that, when he was a regimental soldier, many of those whose shoulders held the sky suspended were tempted to hard thoughts about superior persons who could arrange for themselves to be as far behind the line as they chose.
I am not saying that it would be fair for those who may regard themselves as the P.B.I. of civilian life to accuse us in that way just now. All I am saying is that it cannot be doubted that we have so acted that such accusations are probable. Those who are responsible for planning and for leading the battle against inflation, in particular those on these benches for seeing that our betters direct the plan single-mindedly and that they do the leading at whatever risk and are seen to do so—those of us would be better for


not having been seen to guarantee ourselves against the slings and poisoned arrows of inflation.
If I may be forgiven a little longer, I will come to my final paragraph. In times of stress, and this is a time of stress, hardly less than 1940, the only thing which matters about a politician or a statesman, if one likes to use that word, is that he shall know at any given moment what is the ball which has got to be hit at that moment, and no amount of skill in hitting the other balls will matter.

Mr. Walter Monslow: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify one important point? Has he received from Parliament all the moneys which have been decided by Parliament in the past?

Mr. Pickthorn: Have I? I do not see the relevance of the matter. I will tell the hon. Gentleman that, of any money which I am legally entitled to, or which I effectively appear to be entitled to, I owe no audit to anyone. But if the hon. Gentleman wants to make a bet with the Archangel Gabriel, to be settled on the Day of Judgment, and wants my advice about myself, I would recommend him to assume that I do with my money what he would do with his.
All that matters at such a time is to know what it is that does matter at that time, to know which ball it is that has to he hit, to know between necessaries which necessary must be chosen. Resistance to inflation is now No. 1 priority, and vital. Neither do I believe—though it would be out of order, I think, if I explained how the thing were to be done—that it is so mysterious as all that, however difficult. I quite believe that it is immensely difficult, but not so mysterious, so long as that is what one wants, and not everything else simultaneously. Whatever the best method, this, I am sure, is certain —and I believe that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition would agree with me—51 per cent. of it must consist, first, in convincing oneself unshakably that it is the most important consideration and, secondly, in convincing everyone else that one means it.
The belief that the Socialists really ever had their heart in it was never very strong and died long ago—[HON. MEMBERS: "What?"] In stopping inflation—nor

was the belief—perhaps this is too controversial to be said—that their heads would be much good for that purpose, because, by the time they got here, they were so accustomed to thinking on quite other lines and working in quite different directions.
At this moment, the hopes of anti-inflationists from the Tories are weak—I do not say this to attack the Government, I do not say it in any way letting out any secret—I brought here all the newspapers which happened to accumulate in my flat over the last three or four days, and I made one-sentence extracts from each of them. Everybody must be aware that, for the last several weeks and especially the last several days, they have been full of stuff about inflation and about the collapse of gilt-edged. Some of them even unkindly referred to—never mind—I think perhaps I will leave that out.
They have been full of these things, and nobody can be unaware that on Thursday afternoon and ever since they have taken it for granted that Members' pay has been put up. Nobody can doubt that they have all of them been increasingly of recent weeks, and much more increasingly of recent days, assuming that the Tories really are not so fierce in the battle against inflation as they were or ought to be. The sceptics are not now only those shrewd men of Zürich or the hard-faced men in the City of London. They have been joined, apparently, by every journalist in England, and by the small investors, and by an awful multitude who have nothing to invest anyway.
Such unanimity might, I believe, have been shaken if there had been something like unanimity that this was not the moment for what we are now doing; if the House of Commons had demonstrated that it desired the interests of its Members to depend on the soundness of British currency and not on the paper notes they could vote themselves. I am quite sure Her Majesty's Government want the same result as I do.
I was very grateful for my right hon. Friend's last sentences in his speech. I hope that everything he can do and repeat in this matter—I am sure repetition cannot be excessive—to repeat and emphasise those words will be done. More particularly, I think this fortnight's


work, particularly today's, has made it more difficult for us clearly to attain that result; most particularly difficult for those on the Front Bench to persuade themselves and everyone else that to that end, to the end of resisting inflation, come what may, they are resolute, come what may, with no condition that they must have everything else they would like too. On those last words, at least, I beg my right hon. Friend to prove me mistaken.

5.22 p.m.

Sir Thomas Moore: I am glad that I have been fortunate in catching your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, on this occasion, because two years ago when we last debated this matter I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Carlton (Mr. Pickthorn). Indeed, it was in conjunction with my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department that two years ago I put down a Motion opposing any increase in the pay of Members of Parliament. Although I opposed it two years ago, today I support the Motion, and I hope to show why.
The newspapers say that this move today is unpopular, and my hon. Friend the Member for Carlton has, in his own opinion, shown why it is unpopular—

Mr. Pickthorn: No, I said nothing about unpopularity.

Sir T. Moore: I believe that on the whole it is unpopular, but I cannot recall during the last General Election having had one question put to me either because of my attitude in being hostile to any increase or because it might have been favourable. I was not asked any question one way or the other, nor do I think I either lost or gained a vote in that Election because of the attitude I adopted previously. But there is one thing, which is that this vote—if it comes to a vote today—lays upon us a very heavy obligation and a very heavy burden. It is one to which my hon. Friend referred.
We have to go back to our constituencies, whether we like it or not, and face families who are living on fixed incomes and people who are living on pensions, and we have to justify our attitude today. The only way we can justify our decision today —I am glad

that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary referred to this in his closing remarks—is by ensuring that all of those who are living on fixed incomes, or who are pensioners, have no justification in the future for turning to us and saying, "Why are you allowing the cost of living to get out of hand?" If this menace of real inflation overtakes us—it may well yet do so—then, indeed, all the increases we give ourselevs today will not be worth a moment's purchase.
When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made his admirable and, I think, very well-balanced statement last Thursday on the increases in our salaries, I asked him one question. I asked whether there had been an ommission in his statement in that he had not referred to the general question of pensions for hon. Members. Obviously, the Prime Minister did not understand what I was getting at. Perhaps I posed my question badly, but obviously he thought I was referring to the Members' Pensions Fund. I was not. I was referring to paragraph 64 of the recommendations of the Select Committee, which was presided over so ably by the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies). That paragraph links the question of pensions with the question of current remuneration. I suggest that this is a matter which, although it has been overlooked with regard to this Motion, is not alone a matter which needs debate, but real revision while we are dealing with this very important topic. The pensions granted under the—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): I hope the hon. Gentleman will not go too far with this matter, which has no relation to the Motion before the House.

Sir T. Moore: It is very difficult to avoid dealing with pensions, because in his statement the Prime Minister referred to the Select Committee and to the fact that the Government were adopting the recommendations of that Committee in so far as they referred to the £750 expenses, which were the general expenses alleged to be incurred by Members of Parliament in the performance of their duties.
In that same Report, and linked with the question of expenses of Members, was the question of their pensions, because obviously if Members were worried—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: There is nothing regarding pensions in the Motion now before the House.

Sir T. Moore: I quite agree, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but if we were not to pay this increase of salary of £750, then in truth we should have to increase the pensions so as to balance somehow or other the means by which Members of Parliament live.
However, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if you think that I should not refer to pensions at all, I shall, of course, have very much to curtail my speech—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I think that would be a pity, considering that I am supporting a Motion moved by the Government, and which is now supported by practically the whole House.
In considering either of these questions of salary or of pensions—I am now keeping pensions well in the background—I think that the conditions of life have much changed in the last few years since this matter was first raised in 1939. The tempo of life and the material composition of the House of Commons has altered. Even today hon. Members are accustomed—and rightly so—to living on a rather higher scale of life than they did in 1939. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is quite true.

Mr. Pickthorn: Quite true. That has bust the whole case wide open.

Sir T. Moore: I know—I am telling the truth. Therefore, we have to consider what emoluments are needed in order to satisfy reasonable requirements which, in my opinion, did not exist to the same extent in 1939.
I am finding myself gravely handicapped by the elimination of the pensions question, which I had hoped to dwell upon to some extent, but I would reiterate a remark made by Earl Attlee when we were discussing this matter some time ago. Many of us have personal cognisance of the facts, and have known Members of this House who, when their services to the House were temporarily dispensed with, had to resort to humiliating methods of earning a living until they could get back here.
Either they had lost their skill at their former trade, or perhaps were getting beyond applying that skill, but for one reason or another they had to use

methods which none of us would feel proper or right. On the other hand, many of us have seen our colleagues literally dying on their feet before our eyes because they could no longer afford to retire. They could not afford to forgo the £1,000 a year that enabled them to go on living even the very hard life here.
For all those reasons, I have now come definitely to the conclusion that the Motion moved today by my right hon. Friend, and announced by the Prime Minister last week, is right. I hope that we shall not seek to divide the House tonight. I also hope that there will never be any necessity to go through this unpleasant business again and that the inflation which threatens the country will be overcome. I certainly hope that this is the last time upon which I shall have to register a vote in favour of increasing my own salary.

5.33 p.m.

Major H. Legge-Bourke: I have never uttered a word upon this subject before and I hope that I shall never have to again. I dare say that many of my hon. Friends wish that I were not going to do so now, but I feel obliged to say one or two things this afternoon, not only because I wish to emphasise what my hon. Friend the Member for Carlton (Mr. Pickthorn) said earlier about the importance of curbing inflation, but because we have not yet touched upon why it is that hon. Members should have to spend almost their whole time here in order to carry out their duties properly. I believe that that is fundamental to the creation of the present situation.
In the past Parliament has been able to have its debates confined—except on very great occasions—to those hon. Members who are particularly qualified to speak or who take an interest in the debate. Nowadays, however, it is far more important than it has ever been in our history that in order to satisfy the party machine—or even, perhaps, the Parliamentary machine—many hon. Members have to be here from 10 a.m. o'clock onwards day after day in order to fulfil their duties.
We might very well ask ourselves whether that has improved the quality of Parliament, whether the debates are better debates, whether the legislation is wiser


legislation, and, above all, whether the Grand Debate carried on in watching the Administration is better carried on than it was. If we read any Parliamentary history at all, without doubt we would agree that the real duty of Parliament, which is to carry on its Grand Debate, watching the Administration of the country, was better carried on in the past than it is today.
The fact that the situation has reached the present somewhat deplorable pitch arises because hon. Members have to be cooped up here far too long every day. I do not believe that a good Parliament can ever be based upon anything other than knowledge which is brought into the House from outside by hon. Members. The longer we sit here, day after day and weeek after week, the more we tend to become fungi on the walls—absorbing, absorbing, and absorbing, but having nothing constructive whatever to do with what we absorb. I know that I am deliberately exaggerating and oversimplifying the matter. I know quite well that in both Houses there are many who are fully qualified to be here, and that they have valuable contributions to make on their particular subjects and never hesitate to make their contributions should they feel that they would be helpful to the debate, or, better still, to the country.
It is not upon them that I cast any reflection. I wish that I could feel confident about being able to include myself among them, but I do not, because I know very well that the time I have to spend here—a great many other hon. Members must feel this—prevents my gaining the experience that I ought to be gaining if this Parliament is to be kept dynamic.
It is because of all those considerations that I want to put a particular plea to the Government. I put that plea in the hope that this temporary solution to the problem of the remuneration of Members of Parliament may be regarded as providing a breathing space in which the Government can seriously get down to a consideration of what ought to be the structure of the modern Parliament. If we look back over the history of Parliament we find that one of the most extraordinary features of it is that, whereas we started with the King and his "Parlia-

mentum"—according to the late Lord Simon, I am told, that is bad Latin, but it serves its purpose today—the little "talking shop" around the King, which developed with the Church being brought in and then the barons, and so the formation of the House of Lords—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. and gallant Member, but he is going a little far from the terms of the Motion.

Major Legge-Bourke: I hoped that I had sufficiently kept within the rules of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to show you that I am trying to find a justification for the Motion. I am not arguing the terms of the Motion but merely trying to draw attention to one consideration relating to its introduction. All I am trying to point out is that the Privy Council, the House of Lords, the Church Assembly and, finally, the House of Commons having been developed, everything came to an abrupt stop. There has been no constitutional development since then to meet the increasing activity of the State and its relations with the electorate, at least in regard to the provision of a legislature or debating Chamber.
I strongly believe that if my right hon. Friends want—as I believe the whole House wants—to avoid a repetition every three years or so of the sort of debate that we are having today, they must seriously consider what constitutional reform is necessary. We shall make Parliament work efficiently and serve the purpose it should serve only if, simultaneously, we do everything to ensure that the constitutional organisation of our Parliament is correct.
What we are debating today is but a symptom of the fact that our constitutional development is very far from adequate. It has stood still for too long. In the interests of all of us who love this place—all on both sides of the House claim to do that—who love Parliament and want to see Parliament survive, our constitutional development must keep pace with our legislation.
Those outside this House who have never been in it are apt to think that it is quite easy to say, "I won't stand 21 the next Election" or, "I will apply for the Chiltern Hundreds now." Those who have been here and have stayed here for more than a few years know that there


is a hypnosis about this place which makes it extremely difficult for any hon. Member voluntarily to give it up. Because I am fully appreciative of that and of the fact that the need of some hon. Members is greater than mine, I support the Motion, but I do it on two understandings. One is that the Government will seriously consider constitutional reform, and the other is that they will daily, hourly, and even every minute, consider what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlton regarding inflation.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That, in the opinion of this House, it is expedient that provision should be made, as from the first day of July, nineteen hundred and fifty-seven—

(a) for the payment to members of this House (in lieu of the salaries payable pursuant to the Resolution of this House of 29th May, 1946, and of the sessional allowances for expenses) of the following salaries and allowances, that is to say—
(i) in the case of all members except officers of this House, members in receipt of a salary as holders of Ministerial office within the meaning of section two of the House of Commons Disqualification Act. 1957, and members in receipt of any other salary payable under the Ministers of the Crown Act, 1937, or of any pension payable under that Act, a salary at the rate of one thousand pounds a year; and
(ii) in the case of all members, an allowance in respect of their Parliamentary expenses at the rate of seven hundred and fifty pounds a year;
(b) for enabling members of the House of Lords (except the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chairman of Committees and any member in receipt of a salary as the holder of a Ministerial office within the meaning of the said section two or of a salary payable out of moneys provided by Parliament under the Ministerial Salaries Act. 1946) to recover out of sums voted for the expenses of that House (in addition to the costs of travel for which provision is made pursuant to the said Resolution of this House) any expenses certified by them as incurred for the purpose of attendance at sittings of that House or of Committees of that House, other than sittings for judicial business, within a maximum of three guineas for each day of such attendance.

Orders of the Day — ARMY (CONDITIONS OF ENLISTMENT) BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]

Clause 1.—(CHANGE OF CONDITIONS OF SERVICE.)

5.42 p.m.

Mr. George Wigg: I beg to move, in page 1, line 5, to leave out "who enlist" and to insert "enlisted".

The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Gordon Touche): I think it will be convenient to discuss with this Amendment the next two Amendments, in page 1, line 6, to leave out
October, nineteen hundred and fifty-seven
and to insert:
May, nineteen hundred and fifty-two
and in line 9, at the end to insert:
subject to the agreement, expressed in writing of any persons so enlisted";
the two Amendments at the bottom of the page, in page 2, line 44, at the end to insert:
unless they express their agreement in writing that such regulations shall apply";
and in line 46, to leave out
October, nineteen hundred and fifty-seven
and to insert:
May, nineteen hundred and fifty-two, unless they express their agreement in writing that it shall apply";
and the Amendment at the top of page 2422, in page 3, line 28, to leave out
October, nineteen hundred and fifty-seven
and to insert:
May, nineteen hundred and fifty-two".

Mr. Wigg: I am much obliged, Sir Gordon. I do not know whether that will be agreeable to my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), but it is certainly agreeable to me.
The Bill is the first step in a new policy. The problem which faced the Government arose from the fact that it had decided to withdraw the three-year engagement and from the further fact that the previous Secretary of State for War included in the Army Act of the time a statutory provision to enable a soldier to undertake an engagement of twenty-two years with the right at three-yearly intervals to leave the


force on giving notice to his commanding officer. The Secretary of State has decided, in his wisdom, that as from 1st October next the Bill will allow the Regular soldier to undertake a 22-year engagement, and that subsequently the conditions of discharge and transferrence to reserve shall be governed by Regulation and not by Statute.
5.45 p.m.
We are legislating for twenty-two years ahead, which is a very long time and takes us well towards the end of the century. The Amendment would make the Bill retrospective to the date when the first statutory provision was made, namely 1st May, 1952. Before I explain the reasons, let me say that I do not want to take from any serving soldier any rights that he now has. Although I move an Amendment to antedate the Bill to 1st May, 1952, at the same time I propose a provision that soldiers now serving, or any soldiers in the future, shall have rights removed—either statutory rights or rights which the Secretary of State for War may lay down—only on the basis of the written agreement of the soldier concerned. [Interruption.]

Mr. E. Shinwell: On a point of order. Is it possible for hon. Members to be provided with the facility of hearing my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) by your making suitable arrangements so that the committees which are taking place on these benches may be transferred outside the Chamber?

The Deputy-Chairman: I hope hon. Members will be more quiet.

Mr. Wigg: I do not mind very much. I naturally want my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), not to miss a word of what I say—or even my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman). It might enable him, when he makes his interventions in matters of defence, to be a little more accurate and a little less irrational than he has been in the past.
The Government must introduce the Bill in order to get the future position of the soldier put right, but they must be very careful to remember that this will be Government policy for a very long time ahead. Hon. Members who have

served in the Regular Forces will appreciate that one of the curses of the Army has been "preserved rights." Whenever a Minister has wanted to put something right or to introduce a new condition of service or a new rate of pay, or to alter a trade rate, one thing he has never been allowed to do is to remove any privilege that already exists. The most amazing and complicated situation arises over a period of time in every aspect of the Army—pay, conditions of service, promotion—until along comes somebody like Lord Haldane who tries to clear it up for another generation, until we get into a further mess.
The Secretary of State for War proposes to leave the long-term Regular soldier who enlisted between 1st May, 1952, and 30th September, 1957, in possession of his present statutory rights. Therefore, we may have for at least twenty-two years, and perhaps for very much longer, scattered all over the British Army, in every unit, every company and every battery, soldiers serving alongside each other on the same engagement but on different conditions. I assure the Secretary of State that nothing is more productive of discord, argument and discontent than this.
The numbers will be quite small. Hon. Members opposite with hair as grey as mine will think back to the period between the wars when we had two different rates of pay and the borderline was 26th October, 1925. The major cause of the mutiny or indiscipline which took place at Invergordon was the existence of two different rates of pay and the difference in the conditions of two sets of men serving in the same ships and faced with the same kind of problem. That is the kind of thing I want to avoid. I appreciate the difficulties of the Secretary of State. He will not want to break faith and I do not want him to break faith. The third Amendment in my name is expressly designed to prevent the breaking of faith, because by it no one could have this rights taken away unless he had given his consent in writing.
I wish to digress for a moment. The argument is used on all sides—it was used in the Second Reading debate by the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey)—that the solution to


our problem, the only quick solution, is increases of pay. I do not believe that. I never have believed it. I think the experience of the last year has shown quite clearly that pay does not do the trick. We had a White Paper a year ago on the question of increases in rates of pay which were to cost £76 million in one year. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West said quite definitely that I was pessimistic because I poured cold water on the idea of getting recruits by that means, but last Friday he took a gloomy view about recruiting. I have never taken a gloomy view, but I have taken a realistic view. I have said that no Government will get recruits in that way and any party which says that it can get rid of National Service on that basis is stupid.
There are other inducements besides pay. They have been tried before; there is nothing new about them. Let the right hon. Gentleman order commanding officers to interview each man who joins on a 22-year engagement and say that the Government from October is to take away a statutory right and the men will be governed by Regulations. Let them say to the men, "We want you to comply and give up a property right, something of value, and we will give you something of value in exchange. We will give you a guarantee of £25 or £10 or £X and at the same time three months' leave." Hon. Members overlook the fact that the post-1919 Army was not only bribed by cash but by leave. Soldiers are not only keen on money, but on an opportunity to spend it. Pay will not do the trick. I do not believe any Secretary of State will recruit more than 12,000 men a year to the Regular Army.
I do not use the word in any discourteous sense, but I urge the Secretary of State not to accept lightly the advice offered by military advisers to continue the policy of reserve rights automatically. As an honourable man—and every honourable man in this House would accept this—he must not lightly take away things which have been given, but must by the policy of persuasion—by every inducement that lies in his power —get the men who already are on the 22-year engagement to give up that right so that throughout the Army we shall have men on a similar basis. In other words,

I ask him to use his imagination and his drive in this direction.
In the problem with which we are dealing that of the 22-year engagement men is a small part. The present Secretary of State and a future Labour Secretary of State will be faced with exactly the same problem. The Secretary of State has to build up a contented Army. I have said this to the right hon. Gentleman many times, as he will recollect. What matters in all this business is not pay but trends in recruiting. We have to introduce into the Army a fashion which makes a man who is allowed to take on an engagement feel that he is a respected person and not someone who is regarded as having a screw loose. Perhaps I might tell a story which I have told the right hon. Gentleman before.
I am not a religious sort of person, but many times in my service I noticed men come into a barrackroom and kneel to say their prayers. Whenever that happened, in no time half the men in the barrackroom were doing the same. Trends matter a great deal. I am not trying to give a religious slant to this question, but am stating from my experience what can happen. Unfortunately, I think the appalling mistake made over the 3-year engagement was that we introduced into the Army a kind of Gresham's Law. It started as a 3-year engagement and then spread to twenty-two years and now it has spread throughout the Army. Up go the figures, but we are borrowing from the future. The trend in the Army is not to stay in but to take one's money and get out. It is that trend I want to correct. I want a happy and contented Army. Some of the Amendments in my name which appear later on the Notice Paper are directed to that end.
Basically I want to persuade the Committee, and above all the Secretary of State, to turn away from what I call the doctrine of reserved rights and the idea that because from 21st October he has to give something to a 22-year engagement man he must give it to all the others, because that is the way the fashion goes. If anything is given it must apply to everyone, but if something is taken away from someone who already has it that principle must not apply. The tradition of the Army is that that policy cannot be continued be it a question of pay or of conditions of service.
I admit that I have used the Amendment as a peg on which to hang a larger argument, but the Secretary of State is not introducing a minor Bill. This is the first halting step in the second round and, unless his policy succeeds—as I genuinely hope from the bottom of my heart it will succeed—we shall never be able to get rid of National Service. If it does not succeed, the more mistakes are made the more the ball of wool becomes scrambled and the bigger the difficulty becomes. I hope that if the right hon. Gentleman cannot accept the words of my Amendment he will accept its spirit.

Brigadier O. L. Prior-Palmer: I am at a little of a loss, Sir William, because I happened to be outside the Chamber when the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) moved his Amendment. Am I to understand that we are discussing some other Amendments with the first Amendment on the Notice Paper?

The Deputy-Chairman (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray): Yes, I will make it clear. We are discussing with this Amendment five other Amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg).

6.0 p.m.

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: I apologise for adding to your labours, Sir William. At first flush, when I read this morning the hon. Gentleman's Amendment, my first reaction was, quite frankly, opposition to it. I felt that when a man had a contract one of the first things that we must do, particularly in regard to many of the matters to which the hon. Gentleman referred, such as popularising the Army, was to see that we adhered to that contract and did not break it. There have been too many times in the history of the Army when contracts have been broken.
After reading the Amendment more carefully and hearing what the hon. Gentleman said, I am not at all sure that he has not got something here. I think that, provided a man cannot have his contract broken without his written consent, there is no harm in it. I do not know what were the reactions of my right hon. Friend originally to this, but I hope that he will not give a categorical announcement that he rejects the Amend-

ment, but will suggest that he will have another look at it, and that we might hear from him more about it on Report.
I think that the arguments adduced by the hon. Gentleman are almost irrefutable. He is perfectly right. One of the chief sources of trouble in the barrack-room, the regiment or the company has always been differential rates of pay, differential conditions of service and so on. They lead to more grousing and trouble than anything else. In this instance, I can see all sorts of rocks ahead unless the Amendment is accepted. The mere fact of it being applicable only when a man consents voluntarily and in writing removes any possible harm that there might have been in the proposal originally and, therefore, I suggest to my right hon. Friend that he should have another look at this matter.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) that in discussion of a series of Amendments and of the Bill in general we should not take a gloomy but a realistic view. I do not take a gloomy view about the drop in recruiting. I believe that it is because potential recruits have made up their minds to have a reappraisal of the whole situation.
I think that my hon. Friend was right when he argued that there were other inducements to the potential recruit than that of pay. We must interpret pay not only in terms of£ s. d., but in terms of exactly what the£s. d. mean. I tried to put myself in the place of the man who solemnly signs this contract to give up his life to the Army for twenty-two years. Has he really thought what is likely to happen in the world in twenty-two years?
I can imagine a recruit saying that he wants to be in the Army to defend his country against Russia and against international Communism. I can quite understand that a soldier who signed a contract for this purpose would by now be sadly disillusioned. I can imagine that if my hon. Friend had been forty years younger he might have accepted this situation, but suppose a soldier took this view of his obligations in 1952 and found himself in the position of 1956. Then the soldier who signed on for the purpose of defending this country against Russian Communism might have found himself


having to serve in a hare-brained expedition like Suez. It would give that soldier no satisfaction, if he had taken the view that Suez was a mad adventure and not in the interests of this country at all, to find that after Suez one of the hon. Members most responsible far Suez had suddenly become a plenipotentiary in the War Office.
A contract should be an honest contract between the soldier, the country and the Government. The situation between 1952 and 1956 was such that I believe the main argument adduced in the House of Commons was that the soldier must be prepared to join the Army in order that this country could carry out its obligations under N.A.T.O. or under a force which was to take part in some international action corresponding to that in Korea. I believe that the man who joined the Army in 1953 or 1954 under the impression that he might have to fight Russia in Europe would be sadly disillusioned when he found himself compelled to take part in a war of which, after reading the reports of the debates in the House, he thoroughly disapproved.
The first essential if a soldier is prepared to give up twenty-two years or twelve years of his life to the Army is that he should be fighting for a cause in which he believes. In the past, the general assumption was that a soldier enlisted in order to take part in the defence of his country. A man who is asked to sign a long-term contract with the War Office today has not the foggiest idea of what is likely to happen in the next twenty-two years. If we look back over the last twenty-two years we find that we have spent many of them in fighting Germany. Now the potential enemy is Russia, and one does not know who the potential enemy will be in ten or twenty-two years' time. All that we can understand is that a soldier who enlists in the Army might be called upon to fight somebody about something.
That idea is very unsatisfactory to the intelligent man. A man who is prepared to give his life to coal mining, which in my constituency has been the alternative to the Army, is quite prepared to sign on for twenty years, knowing that at the end of that time he will still be in the industry, in the same place, and carrying on the same occupa-

tion. Any potential soldier, looking into the future, does not know where he is likely to be and what he is likely to be doing in ten years' time and he is in a very difficult quandary.
I should like one of the Ministers to be able to satisfy the potential soldier that he will be employed on some reasonable expedition say in the year 1960. I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman who is to reply will be able to give a satisfactory assurance that we are not to be engaged, not in defending this country against Communism, but in some gamble or some adventure such as the Government unfortunately have undertaken in the past and are likely to undertake again.
In addition to the inducement of pay, we should tell the soldier exactly the kind of cause for which he is likely to fight. Cromwell's Ironsides knew what they were fighting for. They did not need to enter into an engagement for twenty-two years and they were not attracted into the Army for pay; they fought for a cause.
Nobody knows today what is the cause for which the soldier may be called upon to give his life. There are vague ideas. He has been told that he may have to fight international Communism, but then we are told, after all, that international Communism is not so belligerent. The potential recruit will read the political speeches of these days and the speeches of great military leaders like the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill). Reading the speech made by the right hon. Member last week, in which the right hon. Member gave a realistic appraisal of the present international situation, the potential recruit may say, "If things are going on like this there is no need for me to join the Army for six or twelve or twenty-two years because the Russians are becoming more reasonable, and if it comes to the possibility of war with the Russians, what we shall have to rely on is the deterrent of the atomic weapon." The average potential soldier does not understand what he is likely to be doing as a soldier in atomic and nuclear warfare.
I believe that the soldiers who enlisted in 1952 and to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley referred ought to have the option of reconsidering their contract, because the Government have already broken the contract and have sent


them on expeditions which the soldiers did not think possible when they enlisted a few years ago. In my opinion, the soldier ought to have the same opportunity of changing his mind as has the policeman. As far as I can see, it is virtually only the soldier who is called upon to sign these long-term contracts. If a Member of the House thought he would be here for twenty-two years and were dissatisfied with the pay and conditions, he could always apply for the Chiltern Hundreds. I want to see the War Office give the same opportunity to the soldier and tell the soldier that if he is tired of the whole thing and loses confidence in the Government he can apply for the Chiltern Hundreds.
I was talking to a policeman during the week-end, and I said to him, "If you are tired of your conditions in the police service, how can you get out of it?" He replied, "I can get out of it by giving a month's notice". Why cannot the same apply to the soldier? If we are so certain that we are to give the soldier all these wonderful conditions and more pay and if he is to be regarded quite differently than in the past and is to be offered a career, why do we need to say, "We shall hold you to a contract for a certain number of years"? Why cannot the soldier have the same opportunity as the police constable and leave to go into industry if he wishes to do so? Why cannot the soldier resign by giving a month's notice? I do not know the answer. The only answer is that we are getting the soldier in the Army by false pretences and are assuming that he will be disillusioned after a year or so and that, if he had the opportunity, he would give a month's notice and leave.
Indeed, that has been the experience with National Service men. After they have had experience of the Army, not many of the National Service men enlist, otherwise we should not be facing this problem. When they have had six months or twelve months of the Army, all the great majority of the National Service men long for is the time when they will be released.
6.15 p.m.
That is in the very nature of the concept of an Army in these days. If we are to have an Army in peace-time, it will be so intolerably dull that people will

inevitably want to leave it. I do not believe that the great majority of soldiers want to take part in minor wars, and we are told that if there is a major war it will be suicide. The soldiers who looked at the glamorous recruiting posters and later came to the conclusion that they preferred to do something more useful, such as coal mining or engineering, were perfectly justified in default of a constructive policy by the War Office.
I cannot congratulate the War Office on its publicity in trying to attract potential soldiers for a period of years. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey) quoted what he referred to as gloomy recruiting figures covering April and May. In the defence debates I produced one of these recruiting posters. It was a recruiting advertisement from the Manchester Guardian, a whole page devoted to a picture of an explosion of an atom bomb. How many recruits did they get as a result of that poster? They told me that they did not know and that some soldiers may have seen the advertisement and others may not have seen it, but we now know that as a result of that advertisement, which appeared in the Manchester Guardian in April, there was a catastrophic fall in the number of recruits.
It was a picture of an atom bomb, and the letterpress invited them to join the Army in order to stop this sort of thing. They came to the conclusion that if that was the sort of thing in which they were to take part, they might as well go in for coal mining, industry or some other activity where there seemed to be some future.
I have every sympathy with the Ministers who have to tackle what I consider to be the completely insoluble problem of trying to attract intelligent men into the Army at a time when the Army has become an obsolete and useless institution. Although I have not the background of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, I understand his point of view. He approaches the problem from the point of view of the practical soldier. I approach it from a very different ideological background. Curiously enough, we arrive from a different premise at the same conclusion and we are both convinced that this legislation is futile. We believe that perhaps it could be improved by the Amendments which he has put on the Order Paper.

Mr. W. R. Williams: I had not intended to deal with the aspects of the argument advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), but while he was speaking I was reminded that when I was in the First World War we used to refer to the Army of those days as "Fred Karno's Army". I believe that it would he more of a "Fred Karno's Army" than ever if we had an "Emrys Hughes's Army" on the lines which my hon. Friend suggested. Whatever be the virtues and the ideologies which he has in mind, I doubt whether anyone who has seriously to deal with the question of the Army would adopt his policy. I think my hon. Friend's intentions are perfectly sound, but I imagine that their execution would be appalling and that, as a Committee of the House of Commons, we could not possibly try to follow his argument.
Turning to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), there is no doubt that throughout the whole of my life in the Civil Service, and particularly when I was negotiating on pay, conditions, hours and other things in connection with the Civil Service and with certain other trade unions, one of the biggest difficulties I always encountered was that of differentials.
There was always difficulty about one section having certain privileges. There were always those who had over a long period enjoyed concessions which for one reason or another could not be assigned to new entrants or late corners. There is no doubt that much time and energy has been spent trying to overcome the problem. I believe that if many of them could have been removed in my early days there would have been a good deal more friendship between workers in certain industries. We might have been able to make still greater reforms had we been able to achieve unanimity amongst all workers irrespective of the time when they came into the service in question.
I certainly agree, therefore, with my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley that if there is a legitimate and fair way of removing differentials in this case, it is our responsibility and that of the Minister to find it and put it into operation. I would be with my hon. Friend in any such action he proposed to take

with that end in view, but I must make it clear that I think that it would be a breach of faith of the highest and most serious order if we did any of these things without the full concurrence and consent of the person who has such conditions in his contract, whether they concern concessions, rights or reservations.
If those people desire to retain the conditions that are in their contracts, we are in duty bound to carry out our obligations in that respect. I know, as secretary of a union, that it would have helped me considerably in my negotiations if some of the "old boys' had forgone some of their rights. That would have been fine, but I never tried to make them forgo their concessions or provileges, or to enforce the will of the trade union or of the employers upon them. In this matter, the soldier or sailor or whoever it is must decide whether or not he will retain concessions to which he is entitled by regulation, and even by statute. They should be given up only by his consent.

Mr. Wigg: I would draw my hon. Friend's attention to my Amendment in page 1, line 9, at end insert:
subject to the agreement, expressed in writing of any persons so enlisted".

Mr. Williams: I want to emphasise that it must be done by consent, and by written consent.
I want to go further. I know how pressure is brought to bear from many directions on people who have what we call outmoded conditions. Perhaps I myself have been guilty of trying insidiously to tell people enjoying concessions "You will not lose such a lot. There are all these other things to look forward to." In order to make things easier for the system and for ourselves, we brought that sort of pressure upon them from time to time.
I should have thought that the Army was a good place in which to bring pressure to bear on people, if it was so desired. If the Minister adopts the Amendment, which I think is a good one, and seeks to use it in the framing of future conditions of enlistment, I sincerely hope that he will make it perfectly clear to all army commanders and others involved that no pressure whatsoever will be brought to bear upon the men who have


these rights, and that they will be left completely free—and encouraged, perhaps, in the right way—to opt for the new conditions and not pressed to do something that is not in accord with their wishes.

Major H. Legge-Bourke: While congratulating the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) on introducing this Amendment, it seems to me that the key to the whole thing may lie in the Amendment in Clause 1, page 2, leave out lines 34 to 36. The fact that those lines are already in the Clause seems rather to indicate that my right hon. Friend is himself considering the possibility of men already serving wanting to adopt the terms of service now proposed for those enlisting in the future. Otherwise, I do not see the point of those lines.
If that is my right hon. Friend's intention, I certainly welcome it, because, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer) said, there is a very strong case for encouraging those already in the Army to get on the same basis as those who will enter. I certainly think that there could be no purpose in those lines being in the Bill unless that situation was visualised.

Mr. E. Shinwell: My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) does not believe in the existence of an Army at all. That ought to be made abundantly clear. Nevertheless, no hon. Member has offered more advice to successive Secretaries of State for War on how to run the Army, and how to treat the men in it—including the officers, of course—than has my hon. Friend. Indeed, he has by now become an authority on the subject.
What has troubled his mind in this debate is that the soldier ought not to be subjected to any kind of pressure, but he has forgotten that no pressure is exercised on any person to enlist in the Army— apart from the advertisements to which my hon. Friend referred, and upon which he poured oceans of cold water. He proved those advertisements to be completely innocuous. If a young man who is eligible wishes to enlist in the Army, he does so of his own volition. It seems to me that my hon. Friend was mixing

up this Bill with the conditions that pertain to National Service, but they are quite different. That, of course, disposes of almost all his case—if, indeed, he had a case at all.
Everyone enjoys the fun and games to which my hon Friend devotes himself from time to time, but, on the assumption that we require an Army, this Bill —though one would hardly suppose so from the present attendance of hon. Members—is really one of major importance. Of course, with the present international tension, and in the foreseeable future there appears to be very little hope that that tension will be relaxed, much though we all desire it, and until we can abolish land forces entirely because of the complete, absolute and competent emergence of nuclear weapons we must, when considering this Measure, proceed on the assumption that we shall require an Army for some time ahead. This is very unfortunate, because the Army absorbs manpower. It is also unfortunate because it entails considerable expenditure, which the country finds it very difficult to endure, but there it is.
6.30 p.m.
We are considering the question, which is a major one, of how we are to build up, in the absence of National Service—because that is the principal consideration here—a volunteer Regular Army. One of the Amendments put down by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) relates to the date when the new contract of twenty-two years' Regular service should begin. I am bound to say, in the absence of a considered and logical statement by the Secretary of State for War, that I cannot understand why it is necessary to begin with a date in October, 1957, because, clearly, if that is to be the commencing date, anomalies in the conditions and period of service are bound to continue because the conditions and the period are related. I think this is bad for the Army.
Hon Members will agree that we are making a fresh start. That has been imposed upon us by the decision of the Government to abolish National Service in the course of the next two or three years. Whether they can abolish National Service in 1960, or, at any rate, announce their intention of abolishing it in 1960, depends almost entirely on whether this


scheme succeeds. If it fails, I am afraid that, whether we like it or not, we shall have to accept, under the assumption that we require land forces, a continuation of National Service.
That would be deplorable. We want to dispense with National Service as soon as we possibly can, but if the Government propose to continue anomalies at a time when we are making a fresh start, they are making a very great error. Of course, there may be an explanation for this. I may be wrong, but I venture to suggest that to go back to 1952, as my hon. Friend suggests, would mean that we should be interfering with contracts entered into at that time.
That may be the explanation, but it is easy to remove that difficulty by revising the contracts entered into at that time and bringing them into line with contracts which are to be entered into, on the assumption that the men can be obtained, in October, 1957. That should be a way out, and it is an administrative act which I think could be undertaken by the Secretary of State for War. So much for that, but, of course, there may be another explanation.
I should like to say a word about the purpose of this Measure, which is not a minor Measure but one of major importance. How are we to attract recruits? I have had to face this question in my time as Secretary of State for War, and for the three Services as Minister of Defence. It is an almost intractable problem in periods of full employment. I do not mean by that that it is easier to attract men in periods of trade depression. I think the statistics are against that. It appears to me, from my study of the problem—I do not pretend to be an expert, but it appears to be so from my somewhat casual study of the problem—that the reservoir which is tapped for the purpose of obtaining recruits is circumscribed and not unlimited. Only a pocket of men who can be obtained for this purpose—men who join the Services traditionally, because their fathers or grandfathers served in the Forces, or because they are attracted to what they regard as an adventurous career. Be that as it may, it is a difficult problem.
The question is how we can break down the problem and come to some solution. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley was inclined to rebuke my right

hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey) who, in his speech on the Bill last Friday—I am sorry that I was then engaged elsewhere—suggested that one means of attracting the recruits was to give them more pay. I have heard that said over and over again. In fact, I have heard it said so often that I believed it, and adopted the expedient myself. Let it not be forgotten that when I was Minister of Defence I caused the Government to spend £55 million in increasing the pay of officers and other ranks. That was a hefty sum at the time. Since then there have been further increases. Very large sums have been expended in the effort to persuade young men to join the Services, but these efforts have not met with the measure of success that was anticipated. There must be some reason for that.
I recall that Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery, when he was Chief of the Imperial General Staff, conceived the notion, regarded by many people as fantastic, that if the accommodation in barracks was improved to the extent of providing bedside lamps, young men would hasten to join the Forces. I remember going to one of the newly-constructed barracks and seeing these excellent little dormitories—not the huge places, whitewashed, with everything spick and span, cold and cheerless, to which the soldier was accustomed, but the small dormitories, with the walls almost panelled, according to my recollection, and with bedside lamps. It was very pretty, but it did not attract the recruits. It evidently requires more than bedside lamps to bring them in. When I was Secretary of State for War, and a long time ago when I was the Financial Secretary to the War Office, many years ago before the last war, I thought that by improving the accommodation in barracks men would be attracted. Somehow, it does not work.
I suggest that there is one method which would help. I do not want hon. Members with military experience, especially those who have been officers in Guards' regiments and regiments of the line, to pounce upon me when I suggest it. One of the matters which troubled me a great deal when I occasionally visited depots, barracks and camps was the somewhat truculent, arrogant, dictatorial behaviour of not, strangely


enough, the officers, but non-commissioned officers towards their men. Whether they did it because I happened to be engaged upon a tour of inspection, I do not know, but they would hustle men out of the way—"Make way for the Secretary of State"—all sorts of things which, no doubt, please some dignified people but which to me, not being dignified, did not matter very much. Indeed, I rather resented it. I do not know whether it is customary, but it seemed to me that it was something which happened more often than it should.
I do not want to use the word "democratisation", though I know that it has been used. I do not know how one can inject democracy into the Army; that is the kind of democracy in which we believe when we consult each other as to what we should do, and ask questions of the Government from day to day and get evasive and silly answers. I hope that that is not out of order. I am referring not to that kind of democracy, but to a kind of camaraderie, a feeling of fellowship, that Jack is as good as his master, except that Jack has to be subservient to authority, as one would expect, and I would not deny that for a moment. I wish that there was a better feeling, a feeling that the soldier, the young man who enlists in the Army, is a citizen and is entitled to civic rights.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire rather threw cold water on the idea of a career for the soldier. What is he to enlist for? He must have a cause, says my hon. Friend. When my hon. Friend became a Member of Parliament, he did not have a cause. I am not at all sure that he did; he simply wanted to be a Member of Parliament.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Oh, no.

Mr. Shinwell: All I say is that, if my hon. Friend had a cause, judging by some of the speeches he made, he took the wrong turning.

Mr. Hughes: rose—

The Deputy-Chairman: Order. I do not think that we had better pursue this.

Mr. Shinwell: I am grateful to you, Sir William, because I was about to be rebuked by my hon. Friend; you saved me in time.
It is really nonsense to talk about fighting for a cause. Young men probably do not think along those lines when they enlist in the Service. But, after all, the whole concept is that their services are intended—if I may use a nautical expression in this connection—taking them by and large, for the purpose of providing some measure of security for the people of this country. Sometimes it does not work out, but often it has done, and it is better to have that kind of insurance than to have none at all. I do not think it is a good thing to denigrate our Forces. One can occasionally be critical of people in the Forces for this reason or that, but, after all, they are doing a worthwhile job according to their lights, and it is far better to say that than to discourage them and make them feel that they are in a Service which has no purpose, neither social nor national. They are a very fine collection of people. I have met them. Even the "brass hats" are not quite as bad as they are said to be; some are not as intelligent as I should like them to be, but that is a different matter. We cannot all be intelligent like my hon. Friend for South Ayrshire.
6.45 p.m.
I do not, therefore, believe that pay is enough. I do not believe that barrack accommodation is enough. Conditions are important, in particular the sort of conditions which enable a man, if he feels that he cannot make a career and cannot make a job of it, to go to his commanding officer and say, "Sir, I am very sorry, but I am not making a go of this. Here is my application to leave the Service. Taking everything into consideration as to whether I should be a worthwhile private or non-commissioned officer, will you let me out?" That is the sort of thing I have in mind. I know it is not easy, and one might upset the balance.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is that not exactly what the officer can do, in giving up his commission?

Mr. Shinwell: My hon. Friend is quite wrong. No officer can go out when he likes. An officer must make application if he wishes to resign. The Secretary of State will agree with me, I think, that an officer must make his application,


and he can leave the Service at the discretion of the Army Council. If the Army Council decides that he must not leave, he must remain where he is.
I wish to see a relaxation of conditions, so that a man may feel that there is here an opportunity for a career. Let us make conditions as satisfactory as possible, giving him a kind of social life, making him feel that he is a citizen, with civic rights in the Service, as far as possible, and with the right kind of fellowship. Then, I believe, men would be attracted to a career in the Service.
I do not, of course, rule out the importance of pay. I am quite sure that my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire would agree, whatever he may think of the Army and its purpose—whether it has a worthwhile cause or not —and, indeed, all hon. Members would agree, that a man who serves in Her Majesty's Forces is entitled to the same consideration as is provided for any other section of the community or to similar consideration. He should be properly paid and should feel that there is no economic problem facing him. After all, why should not the wives and children of men in the Services be as comfortable, as contented and as happy in their social life as the wives and children of miners, artisans or agricultural labourers?
The right hon. Gentleman wants men to enlist for twenty-two years, with, I think it is called, an escape clause to enable them to leave after a certain period, and, in any event, to have some relaxation about their reserve service. That is all right, and I hope that he succeeds. My answer to my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire is this. If, after a few years, it is discovered that, because of the relaxation of international tension, because peace has emerged throughout the world, we can afford to dispense with the Army, I am quite sure that the Army Council would have no difficulty whatever in breaking the contracts and, probably, becoming unemployed itself.
Let us not assume that we can solve the problem in any one way. We require a variety of devices and expedients. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley said, there is no one direct line if we are to solve the problem. Many attempts must be made over a period of time and many devices must be employed. I hope

the Secretary of State will succeed. If he succeeds, we can then dispense with National Service. If he fails and we fail to build up a volunteer Army, I warn the Committee and my hon. Friends that their quite proper desire to get rid of National Service will be frustrated.

The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. Julian Amery): I want at the outset to assure the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) that his suggestions on recruiting will be studied carefully in the War Office, where we have great respect both for his experience and for his wisdom in these matters.
In particular, the right hon. Gentleman advocated the democratisation of the noncommissioned officer and he drew on this subject from his own experience. I cannot assure him that the easy camaraderie of the smoking room invariably exists between the warrant officer and the raw recruit. My own experience shows me, however, that the N.C.O. does not try to hustle Ministers around in quite the way that the right hon. Gentleman described —at least, at the present time.
The right hon. Gentleman made some criticisms of the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). The hon. Member's remarks seemed to me to be in the same sort of relationship to the Amendment that the hon. Member is to his party, and it may be convenient if I say what I have to say on that subject first. The hon. Member seemed to look back to a golden age of military service in which every soldier always knew who the enemy would be.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: The hon. Gentleman has been in trouble with his party too. The golden age has arrived as far as he is concerned.

Mr. Amery: Wait and see. The hon. Member seemed to look back to a golden age of military service in which every soldier knew who the enemy was and he quoted Cromwell's Ironsides as an example. He will, no doubt, remember the historian's verdict on Cromwell—that "obsessed with the power of Spain, he failed to observe the rise of France." Perhaps Cromwell was not a happy example for the hon. Member to choose. In any case, even he would find it difficult to draft an Amendment in which the terms


of enlistment specified every enemy that the soldier would have to face.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) asked whether one of the Clauses in the Bill covered the point raised by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg). The last three lines of subsection (5)—indeed, the whole Clause—refer specifically to the case where a soldier with the right to break his engagement at a specified period could, if he were to undertake a course or transfer to another corps as a result of which he would benefit, enable us to ask that he should stay longer. It was not our intention to apply this to the 1952 soldier in the ordinary way—that is, not in the same way as the hon. Member for Dudley intended.
The right hon. Member for Easington asked why the Bill should apply to those who enlisted after 1st October, 1957, and thought that this would give rise to a number of anomalies. It is not only important that contracts should be observed but very important that they should be seen to be observed. The speech of the hon. Member for Openshaw (Mr. W. R. Williams) rather confirmed the point. We are quite clear in the War Office that the hon. Member for Dudley has no intention in the Clause of making alterations of Regulations retrospective without the consent of the soldier concerned. It is quite clear that that is not the intention of the hon. Member for Dudley, but the hon. Member for Openshaw showed how easily suspicion may arise that something which is permissive in a Bill could become a vehicle of excessive persuasion in practice. The point is one with which I shall deal a little further presently, but I wanted to introduce it at this stage in commenting on what the right hon. Gentleman said in his intervention.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer) said of the Amendment that he would be opposed to it at first flush. "First blush" is an expression with which I am familiar. "First flush" seemed to me to be an agreeably earthy metaphor which should, perhaps, have a wider currency. Our reaction in the War Office was rather the opposite. We have given very careful thought in the War Office to

the Amendments put down by the hon. Member for Dudley. We recognise that his intention is to strengthen the Army and to help us reach the goal of an all-Regular force in the next few years.
The hon. Member made the point that his Amendment would allow us to offer a bounty under which a soldier who enlisted in 1952 or thereafter before 1957 would be able to adapt his service to the Regulations which will come into force after 1st October. The hon. Member will, of course, be aware that the pre-1957 soldier can already waive his right to leave the Colours at three, six or nine years and that if he does so, he gets a bonus in pay in advance. That does not cover the whole of the point raised by the hon. Member for Dudley, but it is a step towards it.
In fact, as the hon. Member himself said, only a small number of soldiers are affected by the point which he raised. The hon. Member said that this was a matter of importance for the next twenty-two years. Of course, any soldier, both under the 1955 Act and under the Bill, would be free to leave the Army after twelve years or at any three-year interval thereafter. Nothing, I think, could prevent that. Furthermore, nearly six years have already passed since 1952, so that both the numbers concerned are relatively few.
While there might be an advantage of flexibility in adapting the Bill in the way that the hon. Member proposed, the very strong arguments advanced by the hon. Member for Openshaw must be set against doing so. The Bill and the Regulations stemming from it are a charter for the soldier and it is extremely important that there should be no confusion in his mind. On balance, therefore, my right hon. Friend feels that we should be wiser in this case not to accept the hon. Member's Amendment, although we recognise the spirit in which it was moved.

Mr. Wigg: I should like to withdraw the Amendment, but I hope very much that, although the Secretary of State has not accepted it, when similar situations arise in future he will consider whether it is possible to treat such a situation when it arises on the lines I have suggested rather than take what until now has been the customary procedure of fixing a date in the future and never minding the exception. I hope he will


try to move towards the general principle that service, pay, or indeed whatever the subject might be, will be treated on the principle of universal application rather than leave exceptions lying around. If the hon. Member accepts this suggestion, I shall be more than satisfied.

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. John Hare): I should like to give the hon. Member the assurance that I shall certainly consider seriously what he has just said. I hope that that will satisfy him.

Mr. Wigg: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I beg to move, in page 2, line 2, to leave out "twelve" and to insert "three".
The general arguments I brought forward in support of the previous Amendment apply to this Amendment, and I do not wish to proceed at great length. I hope that on this occasion I may have the support of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), because I really think he is indebted to me for my speech on the previous Amendment, for it gave him the basis for a lengthy speech in which he outlined his own views. I do not know exactly what would have been in his speech if he had not had to reply to the hon. Member for South Ayrshire.
I would say to the Secretary of State, who, presumably, will resist this Amendment, that there is, I believe, an argument that people who enlist in the Army should have more than the bare terms of a contract, and that the soldier should have sonic cause for which to fight. I do not know whether he disputes the fact that, whatever may be said against Oliver Cromwell politically, as a military leader Oliver Cromwell was a considerable success. If he will not accept Cromwell as a military success, I would refer him to the fact that Robert Bruce was a considerable success as a military leader.

The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Gordon Touche): It is very difficult to connect these remarks with the Amendment, which is a very limited one.

Mr. Hughes: Yes, Sir Gordon, but when you were out of the Chair various historical allusions were brought forward

by hon. Members. However, I leave this by saying that on the eve of the Battle of Bannockburn, far from telling his men to enter into any contract, Bruce said to his soldiers they could leave, and the result was that they won the Battle of Bannockburn, which shows that people fight better when they have a cause for which to fight.
I do not wish to add to the arguments. Nobody has attempted to answer my argument but only to refer to my past. It is very easy for the right hon. Gentleman to say that I have been at variance with my party. I would only remind him that
Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
I may, in due course, graduate to be Secretary of State.

The Deputy-Chairman: I am afraid the hon. Member is departing very far from the Amendment.

Mr. John Hare: The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) knows that if I were to accept his Amendment I should wreck my Bill. Perhaps he is being quite logical, because he said earlier that he considered the Army an obsolete and useless institution, and what he seeks to do by this Amendment is to allow a soldier on a 22-year engagement to terminate the engagement after three years and have no reserve liability when he leaves, whereas my proposals, as I said on Second Reading, are that under the new engagement a man will serve six years with the Colours and have six years' service on the Reserve.
Therefore, the hon. Gentleman and I are really completely opposed in point of view on the whole of this subject. I hope he realises that I accept the sincerity of what he says, but I hope that as a man of commonsense he realises also that I cannot accept the Amendment or what he has said in support of it. If the hon. Gentleman really has the sympathy which he said on Second Reading he had for those responsible at the War Office, I think that perhaps he could show that sympathy in a practical way by withdrawing the Amendment.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I wish to respond chivalrously to the War Office, which is


obviously in difficulties. If I wanted to make difficulties for the Secretary of State all I should have to do would be to call a count, but I do not wish to make things difficult for the Secretary of State. I believe that the logic of events will prove his position so very difficult that he will be very glad indeed when the time comes for him to resign his present commission. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Wigg: I beg to move, in page 2, line 25, after "undertaking" to insert "in writing in the prescribed form."

The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Gordon Touche): I think we can discuss with this Amendment the hon. Gentleman's next Amendment, in page 2, line 26, at the end to insert:
hand it to his commanding officer, who, before accepting it, must satisfy himself that the soldier fully understands the extent to which his right to terminate his colour service is affected, and".
We can also discuss the two Amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Fienburgh), in page 2, line 42, after "affect" insert "any," and in page 2, line 44, at end insert:
except with the consent of any such person which shall be given in writing to his commanding officer".

Mr. Wigg: I am not sure that those two Amendments deal with the same matter as that with which I wish to deal, but if my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Fienburgh) has no objection, I certainly have not.

Mr. Wilfred Fienburgh: I think there is a difference between the two groups of Amendments. I think the Amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) are related to the first Amendment he moved.

Mr. Wigg: No.

Mr. Fienburgh: That is not so? However, I think it would, perhaps, be more convenient if my hon. Friend proceeded to move his Amendment now, for during his speech we shall see what it is all about, and I may then, perhaps, be allowed to make an intervention on the subject, or alternatively to move my Amendment.

Mr. Wigg: It seems to me that the Amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Fienburgh) have already fallen because the point of them has already been dealt with, and even the wording is almost identical with the wording of my Amendment, in page 2, line 44, which has already been discussed. However, I am only too anxious to be helpful to hon. Members in all parts of the Committee and I am entirely in your hands, Sir Gordon. I will move whatever Amendment you would like me to.

The Deputy-Chairman: Then perhaps the hon. Gentleman will proceed to move his Amendment.

Mr. Wigg: The Amendments relate to subsection (5), which deals with two classes of men, those who may be selected to undergo a course of instruction which may be of such a character as to confer great benefits not only upon the Service but on the individual concerned, and secondly those who seek to transfer from one arm of the Service to another. I do not quite understand what the Secretary of State has in his mind on this matter.
If he will refer to paragraph 353 of Queen's Regulations, he will find that the Regulations are made under the provisions of the Army Act and deal with all those 22-year engagement men who are serving at the present time. That paragraph contains a right very important to the soldier. I will read it:
(b) A soldier willing so to waive his right"—
that is, waive the right of going on a course of instruction to seek his discharge on the due date—
will complete the appropriate part of A.F. B2139 and hand it to his C.O., who, before accepting it, must satisfy himself that the soldier fully understands the extent to which his right to terminate his colour service is affected by the waiver.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why, if that provision has already been made in existing Regulations to require this undertaking to be given in writing that the soldier understands what it is all about and the extent to which it affects his release date, it should not be included in this subsection (5). That is the reason why I move this Amendment to this part of the subsection, and why I have down another Amendment


to delete the last three lines of the subsection.
I do not think I need say any more about it. I have made it quite clear. I shall be very interested to hear from the Secretary of State why he did not include in subsection (5) the same form of words as exists in paragraph 353 of Queen's Regulations.

Mr. John Hare: I see the point that the hon. Member has made. He is really concerned that the conditions laid down in paragraph 353 of Queen's Regulations shall apply to any new Regulations that we may make under the Bill. I am perfectly prepared to give him that assurance. I have not provided for it in the Bill, but I assure him that exactly the same emphasis and words will be related to any new Regulations that I make. I think that covers the point which the hon. Member very properly has in mind.

Mr. Wigg: In those circumstances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Fienburgh: I beg to move, in page 2, line 42, after "affect", to insert "any".
I suggest that with this Amendment we also discuss the Amendment in line 44, at the end, to insert:
except with the consent of any such person which shall be given in writing to his commanding officer".
We are still on the point of contract between the War Office and the soldier who enters into an engagement under Regulations to be promulgated in future. The point here is rather different from that made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), with the support of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). I was fascinated by the suggestion put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire that in future the serving soldier might enter into a form of personal contract between himself and the Under-Secretary of State. The contract was to be as complicated and lengthy as that which covers the activities of Diana Dors. It was to include a clause that the Under-Secretary should inform the soldier of any wars that were to be waged in the twenty-two years of his service, their direction, their scope and the enemy against whom they would be

fought. This I regard as basically impracticable.
There are, however, one or two points on the contract between the serving and enlisting soldier and the Government which we might well clarify. I will not go into the many arguments put forward under the umbrella of the Amendments on the Order Paper, which has extended very widely in discussions about conditions of service, the quality of service and the democratisation of the Services, but I would add to the point made by my right hon, Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) when he asked for the democratisation of the sergeant major. I was rather appalled to read in the Lancet—

The Deputy-Chairman: I do not think that that arises under the Amendment.

Mr. Fienburgh: These points were allowed to pass in discussion of previous Amendments concerning contracts between the enlisting soldier and the Government. The Chair has allowed some references to conditions of service other than the exact length of the term of service, to which strictly the purpose of the Amendment is confined.

The Deputy-Chairman: But we do not want those arguments repeated.

Mr. Fienburgh: I bow to your Ruling, Sir Gordon, but I had a very good story to tell about sergeant-majors, which I am sure the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) would have appreciated, since, like me, he served under a sergeant-major.
The purpose of the Amendment is to qualify the implicit point of restriction in the Clause, The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary pointed out on Second Reading that when the Regulations were promulgated governing changes in the future—not the changes the right hon. Gentleman has in prospect and the change that he has announced, but new Regulations affecting the length of service and conditions of service—they would not be retrospective. That is, they would not cover a soldier who had previously enlisted under some other term of engagement.
The point that we make in the Amendment is that there might be occasions when it would be desirable, in the interests of the Army, of the soldier, and even of the War Office to allow a degree


of retrospection. We were worried that the way in which the Bill seemed to be formulated rules out the possibility of retrospection, when that retrospection might be thought to be desirable, proper and practicable.
7.15 p.m.
The relevant Clauses of the Bill are governed by Section 22 of Part I of the Army Act, and I think that the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) made a very strong point on Second Reading when he suggested that the Bill should have been brought forward as an amending Bill to the Army Act. If that had been done, it would have been easy for us to bring forward these Amendments. I can well understand why the Secretary of State did not do that, because he would then have opened the floodgates to a wide range of Amendments to the Army Act which would have gone far beyond the scope of this Bill Therefore, we are in difficulty with the Amendments and it may well be that if the right hon Gentleman accepts their point he will be able to advise some different formulation on Report.
The principle behind the Amendments is very like the principle which was adumbrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley—that it is bad in one Service or in one barrack-room to have one or more groups of people who are all on different conditions of service. Basically it is administratively untidy. It is also the subject of a fair amount of grumbling and comparison between conditions applicable to one man and the conditions applicable to another. For the sake of an orderly and sensible construction of the Services, it would be better, when new Regulations are introduce to change the period of enlistment or the period of Reserve, that so far as it is possible they should be retrospectively applied.
Again, and this also we have in common with my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, a situation must never arise whereby a serving soldier's contract is broken or worsened without his individual consent. Therefore, if there be in the wording of the Bill an implicit ban on retrospection, we should like it removed to the extent that where a serving soldier himself wishes to have applied

to him newly promulgated Regulations he may have the right so to opt.
We must not disguise the fact that this can work both ways. For instance, a serving soldier might be reaching the end of the fifth year of his six years' service. Suppose that at that very time a Regulation were promulgated reducing the period of service from six to five years. In that case, even thought it might cause some slight difficulty in the administration of the Army, and for a short time make the figures a little muzzy and result in the War Office not knowing how many men it had, it would be better, if the Government were to reduce the term of service from six to five years, that the man on a six-year engagement should have the right to opt to come under the new terms of engagement.
The converse also should apply, of course. If the period were increased from six years to seven years, a soldier reaching the end of his 6-year engagement and not prepared to go on for a further three years, but in some doubt and arguing the pros and cons, should be allowed to transfer and to come under the new Regulations so that he could continue for an extra year.
I have instanced the two cases in which the Amendment might apply. There could be many more, but basically it is not on the question of detail or expediency that we wish to put forward the Amendment but on the simple ground that ill-feeling in a tight and small community, such as an Army unit of men who live closely together and talk to each other for many hours of the day, can be quickly bred out of an impression that there is a vague injustice somewhere. As my hon. Friend the Member for Openshaw (Mr. W. R. Williams) pointed out, that can so often arise where there is a feeling that one man has a slightly better bargain, to put it at its crudest, than the other man.
Therefore, if our Amendment is accepted, or alternatively if the Government can bring forward on Report something of a similar nature, we should empower the Army Council, by Regulation, to extend, on the option of the soldier, his right to transfer his engagement to whatever new engagement or period of engagement may ultimately come out of any subsequent change in the Regulations.

Mr. Amery: I hope I shall not be transgressing your Ruling, Sir Gordon, if I express the hope that at a later stage the hon. Gentleman the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Fienburgh) will tell me the story of the sergeant major and the Lancet.
The principle behind the Amendment has been dealt with in the earlier debate on the Amendment moved by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg). As I understood him, the hon. Gentleman based his Amendment on two major arguments, and one minor one. One I might describe as tidiness, the other flexibility. The third was the question of justice and injustice.
Tidiness is important, but I do not think it should weigh very much with us in this debate. The point of flexibility is more important and we considered it carefully in the War Office before the drafting of the Bill, and again this morning when we had notice of the Amendment. However, our strong feeling remains, as I expressed it when discussing the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dudley, that it is essential that we should not only keep our contract but be seen to keep our contract; and that while there is admittedly a possibility that a vague sense of injustice might be bred by the feeling that one man was on a better engagement than another, the speech of the hon. Member for Openshaw (Mr. W. R. Williams) left me with the feeling that there was a danger that the public mind might believe, if the Bill was drawn too flexibly, that pressure might be applied in certain circumstances which would go rather beyond fair persuasion. It is not that I think there would be any danger of that, but that it is important to carry the public with us in legislation of this kind.
We are ourselves satisfied that the engagement we propose of six years with the Colours and six years with the Reserve is right, and we propose to give it a full and fair trial. Of course if experience shows that we are wrong, we should not hesitate either to bring forward new legislation or to amend the Army Act, 1955, certain provisions of which will in any case before long fall due for Amendment.
Meanwhile, however, we ask the Committee not to amend the Bill as suggested, and we hope that the hon. Gentle-

man will be prepared, in the light of what I have said, to withdraw his Amendment.

Mr. James Simmons: There is not a great deal more to be said on this Amendment, though I may say something on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" However, I could not understand what the Under-Secretary of State was getting at when he talked about persuasion going too far. All we are asking is that the soldier should not have his contract altered except with his own consent in writing to his commanding officer, which seems to me to be a reasonable request.

Mr. Amery: If tomorrow the hon. Gentleman will read the speech made by his hon. Friend the Member for Openshaw, he will see my point. It was a reference to what the hon. Gentleman said.

Mr. Simmons: But it was not dealing with the subject under discussion. It still seems to me that this is a reasonable Amendment. Already, six months before his service terminates the soldier has the right to apply to his commanding officer for a further extension of service, and this Amendment is simply an extension of that right.
I stress what my hon. Friend said in moving the Amendment, that there will be a sense of injustice among men serving in the same barrack room, in daily contact with each other, being compelled to have different terms of service. That is a strong point, because the sense of injustice would go if they had the right to opt for what appeared to them to be the better terms of service.
I do not know why the Government should be so sticky about this. Whether it is the influence of the "brass hats" I do not know. It appears a simple thing that when we are passing a Bill which alters the terms of service of the 22-year Service man at present, he should be able to enjoy any apparent advantage equally with the man who joins later.

Mr. Fienburgh: May I, Sir Gordon, mention two minor points on the intervention of the Under-Secretary? He really must not make the mistake of using one speech to answer the two different Amendments. The hon. Gentleman is a man of great wit, indeed, one could say flexibility, so I am sure he could have


thought up a different speech to meet a different point.
The point put by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) was mainly retrospection as from now; that is to say, that there are men with a 3-year engagement, for example, and that some inducement or encouragement or retrospection might be arranged whereby they could opt to come under the new Regulations which will be promulgated after the passing of this Bill.
That being so, there was some degree of substance in the reply of the Under-Secretary, in that there might be some doubt and feeling in the country that the brutal serjeant-major, or the ambitious adjutant, might flay a man to opt for the new terms of service which would last three years longer. One of the possibilities I put forward was, however, quite the reverse, namely, that it might well be that the term of service was reduced from six years to five years. I do not think the public will be a bit worried about brutal serjeant-majors twisting men's arms to persuade them to leave the Army at the end of five years instead of six years. That is why I say that the Under-Secretary was a little lax in using one speech to meet two different arguments.
Therefore, we stick to our point that it seems elementary justice, when we alter the terms of engagement, that the alteration ought to be retrospectively applicable to those already in the Service on another engagement, unless the terms of engagement are worsened by the change in the Regulations and the soldier does not wish to opt.
Nothing in what we are suggesting can worsen the soldier's position in the slightest degree. If the Minister wishes to make his point about the fear in the public mind that pressure may be put upon a soldier, he must admit that that fear must already exist as a result of anyone's contemplation of the current Regulations, whereby a man can stay on for three years, then be pushed into serving for another three years; bullied into another three and lammed into a further three until, finally, he has been incarcerated in the hon. Member's Army for a long period of twenty-two years. If there is any substance at all in this vague and nebulous argument about public fears it

surely applies not once but one hundredfold to the Regulations which have already been made.
However, I shall ask leave to withdraw my Amendment because of one thing which the hon. Member said. He said that it would be proper to give the new terms of service a serious period of trial before making any big alteration in them, and as such a period of trial is, in all justice, bound to be at least three years—and as, at the end of those three years, I do not expect to see the hon. Member sitting on that side of the House, I may leave it to posterity to put right anything which may go slightly wrong as a result of the withdrawal of the Amendment.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. John Strachey: I beg to move, in page 3, line 31, at the end to add:
(10) Any regulation made in pursuance of subsection (1) of this section shall be a statutory instrument and shall be subject to annulment by resolution of either House of Parliament.
I want to repeat what has been said by my hon. Friends and also by some hon. Members opposite, namely, that this Bill, although it is short, is an important one. It changes the basic terms of engagement in the Army; basically, it removes the three-year period of service and substitutes a six-year period for it and, in addition, it makes possible similar changes in the future, either upwards or downwards, in those basic periods of service by way of Regulation made by the Secretary of State.
It is our view that if any major changes of that sort are contemplated a specific opportunity should be provided for the House to debate them. The Amendment makes it obligatory for Regulations to be laid before the House and to be subject to the negative procedure. That is one way of doing it; I expect that there are other ways. The purpose of th Amendment is to obtain some assurance from the Secretary of State that major changes of this sort—which I understand will require no further legislation—will be debatable by the House; otherwise it seems to me that Parliament will be getting too far away from its duty to watch the Army and its conditions.
We have done away with the annual Army Act, and I think that our action in doing so was right, but we must not go to the other extreme and allow Parliament to get out of touch with the Army. We should like some kind of assurance that some thought will be given by the Secretary of State to the problem of making not necessarily every change but major changes in the Regulations—as in the change from three years to six years as the basic minimum period of engagement—debatable by the House. That is the sole purpose of the Amendment.

Mr. Wigg: I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey) that this is a major Bill, but I am a little puzzled at what he has just said. The Bill does not do away with the three-year engagement, and it does not introduce a six-year engagement in its place. If it does, I have sadly misunderstood it. The Bill is important for quite another reason. What it does is to take away the long-service soldier's charter. For the first time the conditions of service have been included in the Army Act. Never before have they been so included. They had always been handled by way of Regulation.
The history of the matter is quite simple. It goes back to the days of the late Lord Hore-Belisha, who took advice from all quarters on the question of what to do about the Army. At some point somebody's bleeding heart ran away with his bloody head, and it was decided to incorporate these conditions of service in the Army Act, with the most disastrous results. It resulted in this pernicious, silly and sloppy system.
If my right hon. Friend thinks that the Bill gets rid of the three-year engagement and substitutes a six-year engagement for it, I should like him to tell me to what provision of the Bill he is referring. When I read his Second Reading speech I thought that his study of the Bill was a little cursory, but if he says that it includes that provision I must come to the reluctant conclusion that he has not read the Bill.

Mr. Strachey: Of course it is not in the Bill. I am not suggesting that. But the Secretary of State made it perfectly clear in his opening speech—to which my hon. Friend was not here to listen—that the purpose of the Bill was to give him the

power, which he intended to use—he was perfectly frank and clear—to abolish the three-year period of engagement, except for the Guards, and substitute for it a period of six years. It is, therefore, made perfectly clear to the Committee that that is the real effect of the passing of the Bill.

Mr. Wigg: My right hon. Friend would perhaps be better advised to keep silent. He is putting his foot in it even more. The Bill certainly does not contain any provision to get rid of the three-year engagement—

Mr. Strachey: I did not say that it did.

Mr. Wigg: —and it does not introduce a six-year engagement. Nor does it give power to the Secretary of State to do what my right hon. Friend said. He has that power already. The Bill adds nothing to his powers; indeed, it takes away from them.
The Secretary of State is now seeking power to do, by Regulation under Section 22 of the Army Act, what he could already do and what he has always been able to do but for the sloppy thinking in connection with the original three-year period proposals. In other words, he has power to legislate and provide a charter. The Bill gives no power to him or to anybody in the War Office to do what my right hon. Friend has suggested.
One of the things which the Select Committee, which considered the Army Act for two and a half years, set its face against was doing what is suggested in this proposal. My right hon. Friend has said that there may be other ways of doing it. The best way is the way of the Select Committee suggested, namely, to do what has always been done in the past. That is infinitely more flexible. The House does not lose complete control, because the Army Act still has to come before it at intervals for an affirmative Resolution and still, after an interval, has to be referred to a Select Committee, when the whole procedure can be looked at again.
If rates of pay are involved it may at some stage need a Supplementary Estimate, and it was upon a Supplementary Estimate that my hon. Friends and I were first able to raise the question of the three-year engagement. I will go back to that memorable day in 1953 when the dispute


took place as to who should have the credit for the great reform which has done what it has for the Army. It was not upon a Resolution; it was upon a Supplementary Estimate that that debate took place. Personally, I would have thought that the Secretary of State for War—and my right hon. Friend, when he once again becomes Secretary of State for War —would find some difficulty in seeking to do what is sought to do here.
The hon. and gallant Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer) knows what I am talking about. It would be far better to obtain an undertaking from the Secretary of State that when any major change—such as is imposed by the withdrawal of the three-year engagement —is to take place, he should tell the House.

Mr. Strachey: That is what I said.

Mr. Wigg: The difference is that the Bill does not get rid of the three-year engagement, or give the Secretary of State power to get rid of it. In fact, he was completely out of order in mentioning it in the Second Reading debate, because it has nothing to do with the Bill, or with any other Bill. The Secretary of State will do what he wants to do about the three-year engagement and the six-year engagement under powers arising from Section 22 of the Army Act, and not from the Bill.

Mr. John Hare: I could not accept the Amendment, which would have the effect that any change of engagement would have to be subject to the negative Resolution procedure.
What has not been appreciated is that the Army Council has been given by the House of Commons authority to enlist the soldier for twelve years with the Colours or any period up to twelve years without Parliamentary authority. That is a power which the right hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey) had when he was Secretary of State for War; the circumstances are not altered at all because twenty-two years are involved. At the twelve-year stage the twenty-two-year engagement man has a right to opt out of the Army at three-year intervals. The right hon. Gentleman is asking me to do more than he himself thought was necessary.
The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) is correct when he says that the power given to the Army Council to legislate up to twelve years for Colour and reserve service was the unanimous recommendation of the Select Committee. Perhaps with that explanation I have satisfied the right hon. Gentleman that I am not asking for anything more than I have now or that my predecessors have had. If he agrees that I have put forward a reasonable case on his Amendment, I shall be grateful if he will withdraw it.

Mr. Strachey: My only feeling is that whatever the increases in the powers given by the Bill, whether small or large, it would be wrong when major changes in the basic terms of engagement of the soldier are made that they should not be debatable in some way by the House of Commons. I am not in the least insisting that it should be done in a particular way, but the Secretary of State ought to tell us now that if he were proposing to change again the six-year engagement he would come to the House and make a statement about it or bring it before the House of Commons in some way. I am sure he would do so, but it would be worth while before we leave the Bill to have words of that description from the right hon. Gentleman. Subject to that, I am perfectly willing to withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. Hare: I hope never to be so discourteous as to make a major change in Army life without coming to the House of Commons and saying what I am proposing to do. Naturally, I cannot pledge my successors, but I hope that they will not have to follow my example, because I hope that my successors will not want to change the six-year period at all.

Mr. Strachey: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. Wigg: I beg to move, in page 3, line 31, at the end to add:
(10) This Act shall not apply to any person in Army service who has not attained the age of eighteen years
The 22-year engagement in its new form will attract a considerable number of men and one wants them to go right through being happy and contented in


their Army service, but eighteen years of age is young enough to take such a decision. I would invite the attention of the Secretary of State to some queer anomalies in the existing Army Act. I cannot understand how they have crept in. Section 2 (5) says:
In this Part of this Act the expression 'minimum age for man's service' means the age of seventeen years and six months.
Then comes, of course, the inevitable exception, with which we are all familiar in army matters. That was much too straightforward a statement. The subsection goes on:
 except that in such classes of case as may be prescribed it means the age of seventeen years.
By and large, it means seventeen years and six months.
Section 6 covers the position of a man who enlists for a shorter period than twenty-two years and decides later to undertake a 22-year engagement, thus converting his service into an engagement covered by existing Regulations. The right hon. Gentleman will find in Section 6 (2) that such a soldier must notify his commanding officer in the prescribed form that he wishes to do so. He is not allowed by the Army Act, as it now stands, to undertake a 22-year engagement until after the age of eighteen years.
We therefore have the situation that a man enlists at seventeen but we will not allow him to convert to the 22-year engagement until he is eighteen. The Section is designed to deal with the case of a boy who enlists before the minimum age, serving an engagement before seventeen years and six months and then wants to convert. We all want to be quite sure that such a young man will not undertake such an engagement while too young. If the arguments about conversion are valid—one must accept them because they are in the Army Act—I should think that on the grounds of common sense the Secretary of State would agree that anyone under eighteen years is a little too young to undertake an engagement of 22 years. For this reason, I hope that he will accept the Amendment.

Mr. J. Amery: The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has raised a point which I am sure the Committee will think

should be treated carefully and sympathetically. Section 6 (2) of the Army Act is perhaps even more complicated than the hon. Gentleman has just described it. In the first paragraph of the subsection the phrase arises
…after attaining the age of eighteen years.
In the second paragraph is:
A person shall not give a notice under this subsection before attaining the age of seventeen years and six months.
One cannot be quite sure which way the Clause leans. It almost indicates that the soldier may take the decision at seventeen years and six months but shall not apply until he is eighteen. The hon. Member knows more about this than I do, because he was on the Select Committee which gave us the power to treat seventeen years and six months as the beginning of man's service.
I have looked into the matter as carefully as I could. The argument which leads me to express the hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his Amendment is of a rather different order. Leaving aside adult service, I would draw the hon. Member's attention to boy's service. Under the existing law, we are entitled to commit a boy at the age of sixteen years to as much as twelve years' Colour service after attaining the age of eighteen. That is fourteen years' total service altogether, two years as a boy and twelve years as an adult.
Any soldier, under whatever term of engagement he joined, is free to leave the Army after twelve years' service. Therefore, it seems that it would be anomalous to get ourselves into a position as we should if we accepted the Amendment under which a man of seventeen and a half would be given greater freedom to break his engagement than a boy of sixteen. A boy of sixteen, being liable in any case to twelve years' adult service and fourteen years' total, and no one being liable for more than twelve years' service unless he wishes it, it would be wrong and anomalous—if we accepted the Amendment—that a young man of seventeen and a half, accepted by the Select Committee as the minimum age for man's service, should be able to break his contract earlier than a boy. On that ground I express the hope that the hon. Member will be able to withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. Wigg: I wish the hon. Gentleman had spoken for another couple of minutes. I might then have been able to verify one of the facts I am not sure about. Will he be good enough to look at the position of a boy on reaching man's service? My mind goes back to a discussion in the Select Committee—I am not sure whether it was accepted or not —that he should have the possibility of breaking his service at that point. My thinking here was that we are changing the situation very radically for the young man who enjoined on a 22-year engagement under the Regulations as they exist and had the right to break at 3, 6, 9 and 12 years. He is going to be in for a much longer period.
If the hon. Gentleman is right about the boy of sixteen I cave in. We have a few minutes before we reach Report stage and this difficulty could be got over by a manuscript Amendment if necessary or in another place. I will assume that the hon. Gentleman has been right and, with the permission of the Committee, I shall withdraw the Amendment, but I shall certainly look it up to see if he is right. If subsequent inquiries prove that he is not right, I hope he will do something about it. Obviously I cannot ask him to give an assurance as a condition of my withdrawing the Amendment. I will withdraw the Amendment without any conditions, but I assure him that if he is not right I shall be after him.

The Deputy-Chairman: As the Bill stands, unamended, there would be no Report stage.

Mr. Wigg: But with respect, Sir William, the Bill will go to another place and come back here again.

Mr. Amery: I would just say this to the hon. Member. I am advised that we have the power under existing legislation to commit a boy for as long as twelve years. We do not do so in fact and six or nine years are the usual limits, but we have the power to make it twelve years. I base myself not only on that argument, although I hold it to be sound, but also on the fact that on mature consideration we took the view which the Select Committee took that seventeen and a half is a reasonable age from which adult service should begin.

Mr. Wigg: I accept that seventeen and a half years is right provided the engagement is not too long. I am not happy when it becomes twenty-two years. I do not very much mind a boy undertaking an engagement when his Colour service starts at eighteen. To some extent I am playing out time to give the hon. Gentleman an opportunity of giving me a reference, but I must point out that there is a fundamental difference when we take away the option a young man has to come out at three-yearly intervals. That alters the situation very considerably. I believe the Select Committee might have taken another view if the Regulations there will be in future had been in existence then.

Mr. Amery: I should refer the hon. Member to Section 4 (3, a) which says:
Where the said person has not attained the minimum age for man's service.…
that is to say a boy—
the said term shall be—(a) a term ending with the expiration of such period, not exceeding twelve years, beginning with the date on which he attains the age of eighteen years, as may be prescribed, being a term of army service;

Mr. Wigg: The hon. Gentleman was not correct in saying that it could be fourteen years from the age of sixteen. He has the right at the age of eighteen has he not?

Mr. Amery: I do not think so as I read the Act.

Mr. Wigg: We cannot continue this argument across the Floor of the Committee in this fashion for too long or we shall exhaust your patience, Sir William. Probably the best thing I can do is to seek the permission of the Committee to withdraw the Amendment and continue this discussion with the hon. Gentleman another time. I have sufficient confidence in him to feel that if there is any substance in what I have said he will seek to put it right by legislation or regulation.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Simmons: I want to draw attention to what I think is a rather odd description. After all, nothing else matters but Clause 1, and the heading of the Clause says that it deals with:
Change of conditions of service.


I am inclined to think that that is a wrong description, because after reading the Clause very carefully, although it is very baffling and difficult to follow in places, it appears to me that all it does is to change the period of service and not the conditions of service.
In a grandiloquent phrase during his oration to us recently, the Under-Secretary said that the Bill and Regulations which will stem from it are the charter for the British soldier. That raised my hopes. I thought perhaps that hidden somewhere in Clause 1 was some reference to what I should call conditions of service, not to the time in which a man does his service but the conditions under which he does it. We must be certain, first, that the Clause follows the description given to it and, second, that it achieves the purpose for which the Bill was introduced. When I refer to the Bill I am really referring to Clause 1, because there is nothing in Clause 2, it being a formal Clause which says how the Bill may be cited.
From what I gathered from the discussion, the Bill is designed to attract recruits. Before we part with the Bill we have a right to know, first, whether this is the right way to attract recruits and, secondly, whether it is the only way to attract recruits. In a debate on an earlier Amendment, my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) rather expanded on the matter with which I am now dealing. He said that some people thought the way to attract recruits was to increase the remuneration offered—as it were, to pay the rate for the job. The only trouble is that the soldier has no trade union, and so no rate for the job is fixed.
8.0 p.m.
My right hon. Friend also referred to the heroic efforts of Field Marshal Lord Montgomery to make the Army a home from home by introducing bedside lamps, so that a soldier could read poetry to lull himself to sleep after he had idled away his time picking up bits of paper on the barrack square, or something like that. I do not think that we want to make soldiers into cissies. We did not talk about bedside lamps when I was in the Army, but that was a good many years ago. Of course, we were only the First World War wallahs, the "contemptible little Army". Today we have

tried to make the Army attractive. There is no objection to making the Army attractive by means of length of service, terms of service or conditions of service, but do not let us make it attractive by making it a soft job.

Mr. Ellis Smith: There is no danger of that.

Mr. Simmons: The type of man we want in the Army is the man with the spirit of adventure, the man who is not afraid of danger and hardship. So I am inclined to think that the bedside lamp theory is not the right one to get recruits into Her Majesty's Forces. I would, therefore, without extending my remarks to any undue length, ask the Secretary of State whether we are to have another Bill dealing with what this Bill is supposed to deal with.
This Bill is supposed to deal, according to the heading to this Clause, with:
Change of conditions of service.
As a matter of fact, it deals with the change of period of service. It mucks about with the Army Act, because, as I read it, Clause 1 (1) is substituted for Section 5 (5) of the Army Act. I thought that this was to be a permanent Measure. A lot of time has been spent on the job. By the Army Act, 1955, we, as a House of Commons, relinquished some of our rights. Before then we had the annual Army Act, on which we could raise almost anything pertaining to the pay conditions and service of the serving soldier.
Now the poor old serving soldier gets a look in only occasionally in Parliamentary time. The Army Act, 1955, is, I understand, being amended by this Bill. It is called a separate Bill because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) said, if it had been brought in as an amendment to the Army Act it would have opened up a very wide range of discussion and we could have had a field day instead of just a little skirmish.
I want to know from the Secretary of State whether, having given us a Bill with a wrong description attached to it, he will give us another Bill to carry out the purpose for which this Bill ought to have been designed if it had been carrying out the object stated in the heading to this Clause, which indicates that it is a Bill to change the conditions of service as distinct from the period of service.

Mr. Richard Sharples: I intervene briefly at this stage to ask my right hon. Friend to give us some clarification of Clause 1 (3), which is the most important subsection of the Bill. It refers to the right of the soldier
…to determine his service at the end of the said period of twelve years…
The Explanatory Memorandum states that a soldier has the right to leave the Army at the end of twelve, fifteen, eighteen or twenty-one years' service. One of the things which has certainly caused difficulty in recruiting for the Army in recent years has been the number of times when it has been necessary to retain in the Army men who have completed their period of service. We had that at the time of Korea and again at the time of Suez. I should like my right hon. Friend to make quite clear the conditions under which a man may now be kept in the Army after the time of his engagement has been completed.
As I understand it, there are certain circumstances in which a man can be retained in the Service for a period of twelve months after the completion of his Regular service. I think that it would be helpful to the Committee if those conditions were made clear at this stage and if my right hon. Friend could say that nothing in the Bill alters those conditions. I also understand that under Section 13 of the Army Act there are certain disciplinary reasons why a man can be retained in the Service. My own feeling is that those cases should be kept to the absolute minimum. I should like my right hon. Friend's assurance that it is his intention that this power should be exercised only in the most exceptional circumstances. I believe that when it is exercised it has a most adverse effect on Regular recruiting for the Army.

Mr. John Hare: I think that I can give the assurance which my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples) wants. The conditions under which a man can be kept in the service, once his contract for service has terminated, are contained in Section 10 of the Army Act, which lays down there conditions of imminent national danger and so on. I have no desire at all to go any further than to carry out what I am already entitled to carry out, and I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend that it is essential that any powers that I

have under this Bill shall in no way be abused. That assurance I can certainly give him.
I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Simmons), who complained that there was only one Clause to the Bill and that in speaking on the Motion, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," he was speaking on the whole Bill. That is rather an unusual occurrence. I hope that the Committee will agree that we have been able to make the Bill for this limited purpose as reasonably short as possible. It is, however, an important Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) made that quite clear, because the terms of engagement are one of the several important factors that we have to consider when framing our future Army. The right hon. Gentleman made a most helpful and constructive speech to which I listened with great attention because I know that when he speaks on matters affecting the Army and recruiting what he has to say is something which I and anyone who has the Army at heart should bear in mind.
I want to emphasise a point made by the hon. Member for Brierley Hill. He asked, "In addition to this, what else will you do?" I agree that a great many other things must be done, but, to put it in simple language, by this Bill I am doing one thing—obtaining powers to substitute for the present three-year engagement an engagement of six years colour service with six years in the reserve. The ability to do that is contained within the Bill, if the Committee and the House allow it to pass. I hope that that satisfies the hon. Member. I realise that this is only part of a major design, but I think that it is a very important part.

Mr. Wigg: I did not intend to intervene, but the Secretary of State has provoked me, as has my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey). The Bill does not give the Secretary of State the power to abolish the three-year engagement. Presumably, he has not read his own Bill. It does not give him either the power to get rid of the three-year engagement or the power to substitute a six-year engagement. He had that power before the Bill was given a First Reading, for it is contained in Section 22 of the Army Act.
What the Bill does is concerned with the terms of enlistment and determination of the service of soldiers serving on 22-year engagements who enlist after 1st October, 1957. That is what it does, and nothing else. I must confess that I am astonished at the right hon. Gentleman. After all, he has all the advantages of a great Department to brief him, and if in his last words on this Clause—not the last words on the Bill, because there are others yet to be said—he makes such a statement, I am astonished. Is it that he led my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West astray? Perhaps I was too harsh with my right hon. Friend. I can understand the War Office having a blind spot about the three-year engagement—it ought to have a blind spot about the three-year engagement—but that is no excuse at all for the Secretary of State saying that the Bill does what, in fact, it does not do. I do not oppose the Question.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause.—(RIGHT TO PURCHASE DISCHARGE.)

A person in Army service enlisted for a term of twenty-two years of such service shall be entitled to claim his discharge at any time within six months after the date of his attestation, and if he makes such a claim he shall on payment of a sum not exceeding twenty pounds be discharged with all convenient speed:

Provided that if the claim is made at a time when soldiers are required by a proclamation under section ten of this Act to continue in Army service, he shall not be entitled to be discharged so long as they are required to continue in Army service.—[Mr. Wigg.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Wigg: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
Under Section 14 of the Army Act a recruit has the right to claim his discharge within three months of the date of attestation, upon the payment of £20. This sum of £20 was fixed a long time ago when the value of money was very different from its present value, but the principle is important because the Army does not want soldiers who are discontented; they are like bad apples, they infect the rest. Section 14 was all

right for a man undertaking a very long engagement when he had the right, on giving due notice to his commanding officer, to seek permission to leave the Army at the end of three years and of successive periods of three years, but when he has committed himself to twenty-two years without those breaks, it seems only right in the Army's interest, and bearing in mind the vital necessity to keep the trend right, that we should give the man the right to opt out after six months.
I am not wedded to the sum of £20. I think that that sum ought to be looked at again, even for Section 14 purposes. I thought so particularly when I asked the Minister of Defence a Question recently about the revised rights for the purchase of discharge. When we are charging a man £250 to purchase his discharge in the first year of service, it seems to me that the figure of £20 ought to be altered.
I am concerned here, however, to establish the principle, and I hope that the Secretary of State will accept it. I can understand the arguments against it, probably on the ground that £20 is too little. If the right hon. Gentleman cannot accept the new Clause, I hope that he will have another look at the matter and insert the principle in another place. In my opinion, he will be making a grave mistake if he does not give an escape clause at about the six months' period.
I suggest a six months' period because at that point the soldier will have been dismissed his basic training and his recruit drill and will just be beginning to settled down to find out what regimental life is like. At that point he will know whether he will make a go of it or not. If he is not likely to make a go of it, he is a Queen's bad bargain; the Army would be better off without him. With the length of engagement of this kind, I certainly advocate an escape Clause, although it need not be irresponsibly exercised. That is why I say that £20 may be too low. I should not worry if the Secretary of State said it ought to be £50, because it should not be made easy and people should not be encouraged to undertake engagements of this kind lightly.
I am sure that the Secretary of State will accept that the Army does not want discontented soldiers. Nothing could be


worse for the Army than that somebody should be belly-aching about all sorts of grievances under the sun. He would be better in civilian life and the Army would be better off without him.

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: I agree with the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) in principle, but I disagree with him about the term of six months. I think that this matter can be considered again with very great benefit to the Army, but in my view six months is too short and is the time when soldiers are about as browned-off as they possibly can be. They have got over the original excitement of getting into uniform, they have only just finished their recruit's training, which is the worst time of all for them, and they have not settled into regimental life. In my opinion, a year or eighteen months would be nearer the mark. In principle, however, I agree with the hon. Member.

Mr. Shinwell: It is seldom that I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), but on this occasion I must raise an objection to the new Clause. Moreover, I am shocked at the hon. and gallant Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer). My hon. Friend's proposal was bad enough, but the hon. and gallant Member for Worthing, despite his long experience of Army life, made a proposal which was immeasurably worse.
My hon. Friend's new Clause would provide that on the payment of £20 discharge money the soldier could leave the Service after six months, but the hon. and gallant Member for Worthing suggests that it should be eighteen months. In other words, the Army is to be put to the expense of training a man for eighteen months, which involves considerable expense, and then, scarcely without a by-your-leave, he is to go out of the Army.
There is a great danger in all this. It is all very well if one man wants to leave after six months, but suppose scores of them want to leave after six months? If we make a statutory provision, the man can take advantage of it. On the other hand, I think that discretion given to the Army Council, used wisely according to the circumstances of each case—and provided that the amount of discharge money

is not excessive—is a much more satisfactory arrangement. As to the discharge money, I would not go beyond £20, because if in the opinion of the Army Council it is desirable that a man should be permitted to leave, either because he will not make a good soldier or, perhaps, on compassionate grounds, a financial obligation of an excessive character—frequently borne, not by the man himself, but by his family, who may be in conditions of near poverty—is not desirable. I have had to deal with many cases involving such families.
It is not so much the question of money but of discretion. Although the Army Council occasionally makes mistakes and does not exercise its discretion with the generosity that one would desire, on the whole I prefer to leave it to the Council, on the recommendation, of course, of the commanding officer concerned. I am surprised at my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley making this proposal. We know from his record in the House in debates of this kind that he is more anxious than, perhaps, any other hon. Member to help to build up a Regular voluntary force. If that is his desire, as I believe it is, I must say that I believe that this would rather militate against the success of the scheme.
On the whole, it would be far better to leave this to the discretion of the Army Council, on the assumption that it will act fairly, wisely and generously in appropriate cases. Quite frankly, if my hon. Friend sought to force this proposal to a Division then, even at the risk of being expelled from my association with him, which I should deplore, I could not go into the same Lobby.

Mr. Wigg: I should never want to expel anybody, least of all my right hon. Friend. Rather would I, as I so often do, wrestle with him, and eventually bring him back to the paths of righteousness. He wanders for two reasons; partly impetuosity, and partly because, like the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, he does not acquaint himself with what is on the Order Paoer. It is an old habit.
I would ask my right hon. Friend just to think for a moment of the young man who is contemplating joining the Army. Even when he is young, twenty-two years is a heck of a long time for him to


commit himself. He is a hit hesitant about it. He discusses it with his family, looks at all the prospects, says, "Twenty-two years", and decides against it. If, however, there is in the Army Act a statutory bolt-hole, not there at the discretion of the commanding officer or of the Army Council, nor even at the discretion of Ministers as benign and wise as my right hon. Friend—

Mr. Shinwell: My hon. Friend asks for a bolt-hole, but suppose they all want to bolt?

Mr. Wigg: Of course, here we can be guided only by past experience. This particular statutory provision is not something novel. It was there in my right hon. Friend's day. Even worse, it was there when he was Financial Secretary to the War Office. It was there when I was a young soldier. He did nothing to remove it. When I looked at his work as Financial Secretary and saw that he did not remove it, that commended him to me. When he was Secretary of State for War, again he did nothing to remove it, so I knew that it must be good.
I think that it is wise to leave in this provision. Nowadays, £20 is less than a month's pay, yet how many recruits take advantage of the provision? It is a very discontented soldier—and there must be acute family reasons—who seeks to take advantage of it.
I want to encourage young men to undertake long-service engagements. The long-service N.C.O.s and warrant officers are the backbone of the Army. The Army cannot do without them. That is why I complain that the short-term engagement introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carshalton (Mr. Head) filleted the Army—took its ribs away. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) spoke of N.C.O.s and warrant officers, but who would respect a warrant officer Class I who had only three years' service? That is what the Army is coming to.
I have stipulated six months. I think that eighteen months is too long, and that, in suggesting it the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer) has missed the fact that the Minister of Defence has revised the rates.

Mr. Shinwell: Make it nine months.

Mr. Wigg: No, I will not make it nine months—unless the Secretary of State for War will accept that.
What the hon. and gallant Member has missed is the provision of the present rates for discharge. They are as high as £250—and quite rightly. Young men are going into the Air Force and there learning trades and skills with which they can earn very large sums of money in civilian life. It is wrong that the Services should provide such training, and that a man should then be able, without a word, to pay a sum of money and go outside to earn a living. That is wrong. Equally, unless we have some provision such as this, we will not get the men.
It may be that three months is enough, and that the existing Article 14, which gives a man a statutory right to go out after three months is sufficient. If it is, I will amend my new Clause, but I do not want young men to be put off from joining by the absence of this provision. I think that three months is too short, and I certainly think that £20 is too little. If my words tonight only provoke a little thinking in the War Office it may well be that the kind of safeguard that is sought will come about, and even if the right hon. Gentleman will not give me the concession I seek, it may increase the £20.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I must apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) for not being present during the early stages of the debate on the new Clause, but judging by the criticism that my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) has made of my hon. Friend, I understand that my hon. Friend has produced very powerful arguments which seem to partake somewhat of the flavour of the rather less persuasive arguments I earlier produced.
8.30 p.m.
Certainly, the right hon. Member for Easington put a very pertinent question. Supposing they all wanted to bolt? If we are in favour of freedom, then they are all entitled to bolt. I would say, for example, that if the British soldiers had been given an opportunity to say whether they wanted to go to Suez or to bolt, an overwhelming number of them would have decided to bolt, and I do not think that that would have been bad for the


country. I know that it undermines conventional ideas of military discipline, but this point will appeal to you, Sir William. In one of the most successful and decisive military battles in the whole of history, the commanding officer said to the soldiers, "If you want to bolt, you can bolt, "and you will know, Sir William, that that was the advice which Robert the Bruce tendered to the Scottish soldiers at Bannockburn, which resulted in the English being defeated.
I suggest that this is a reasonable proposal that the soldier should be allowed, by giving six months' notice and on paying £20, to resume his duties as an ordinary citizen. I have frequently been in the position on the bench of having to decide whether a man should be fined or be discharged, and I submit that when the soldier has done his six months' imprisonment and offers to pay his £20 fine as well the generosity is on the part of the soldier.
The whole of the weakness of the War Office in persisting in refusing this very reasonable proposal put forward by the hon. Member for Dudley is that the War Office really has no military background to fall upon. It could argue against me, of course, that I was producing ideological arguments, that I am a wash-out and a liability to the Army, in any case, and that I have been for a considerable number of years. But they cannot say that about the record of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley. During the time of the Labour Government, when I was regarded as a liability to the right hon. Member for Easington, he was the right hon. Gentleman's faithful ally, but the hon. Member for Dudley is steadily, slowly and from the military point of view coming to the same ideological conclusion which I have always embraced.
So I think it my moral duty, although I would say six weeks instead of six months and reduce the £20 to 20s., to support the hon. Member for Dudley, and I hope he will carry this matter to a Division.

Mr. J. Amery: The discussion on the new Clause submitted by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has revealed a refreshing variety of opinions on this subject of the time after which discharge

should take place and the sum which should be paid for it.
It is quite clear that these are controversial issues. There is a difference of opinion about the time and the sum, and I am not even sure if the arguments with which the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) supported the new Clause are exactly on all fours with the ones which he has at heart himself.
There is another trouble with the proposed new Clause. It would give the right to the 22-year man to be discharged after six months, while the 12-year man would still be liable to the three months' provision only. I think it is certainly arguable, and will commend itself to the hon. Member for Dudley, on reflection, that the issue which he has raised here is wider than the scope of this Bill. For my own part, I rather lean to the view expressed by the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), but if there was to be consideration of the kind of change which the hon. Member proposes, I believe it would come better when we come to the amendment of the Army Act, as we shall in a few years' time, in any case, rather than in this Bill. I hope that, if only to preserve his axis with the right hon. Member for Easington and to divide his axis with the hon. Member for South Ayrshire, the hon. Member for Dudley will agree not to press the new Clause.

Mr. Wigg: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third time and passed.

Orders of the Day — NAVY, ARMY AND AIR EXPENDITURE, 1955–56

Considered in Committee.

[Major Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]

I. Whereas it appears by the Navy Appropriation Account for the year ended the 31st day of March, 1956, that the aggregate Expenditure on sums appropriated for those Services and that, as shown in the Schedule hereto appended, the net surplus of the


Exchequer Grants for Navy Services over the net Expenditure is £9,399,195 11s. 6d., viz:—



£
s.
d.


Total Surpluses
10,387,490
7
6


Total Deficits
988,294
16
0


Net Surplus
£9,399,195
11
6

And whereas the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury have temporarily authorised:

(1) the application of so much of the realised surplus on Vote 10 for Navy

SCHEDULE


No. of Vote
Navy Services 1955–56 Votes
Deficits
Surpluses


Excesses of Actual over Estimated Gross Expenditure
Deficiencies of Actual as compared with Estimated Receipts
Surpluses of Estimated over Actual Gross Expenditure
Surpluses of Actual as compared with Estimated Receipts




£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.


1.
Pay, &amp;c., of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines
343,429
1
5
—
—
108,070
16
8


2.
Victualling and Clothing for the Navy
—
—
239,053
19
1
47,754
18
4


3.
Medical Establishments and Services
—
—
84
5
8
19,270
14
9


4.
Civilians employed on Fleet Services
—
11,745
16
5
204,161
7
6
—


5.
Educational Services
—
—
7,809
7
8
14,140
15
7


6.
Scientific Services
—
—
666,395
10
5
56,592
2
4


7.
Royal Naval Reserves
—
—
197,827
18
9
1,931
12
4


8.
Shipbuilding, Repairs, Maintenance, &amp;c.: Section I.—







Personnel
—
—
306,894
19
4
278,063
17
9



Section II.—



Matériel
272,142
1
6
—
—
3,874,076
1
11



Section III.—



Contract Work
—
187,047
18
2
1,509,107
4
9
—


9.
Naval Armaments
—
—
271,057
9
11
1,226,633
17
4


10.
Works, Buildings and Repairs at Home and Abroad
—
34,173
14
6
53,370
1
9
—


11.
Miscellaneous Effective Services
—
—
686,045
11
3
420,203
9
9


12.
Admiralty Office
—
2,532
18
6
57,389
15
4
—


13.
Non-Effective Services
—
26,700
12
10
125,961
17
5
—


14.
Merchant Shipbuilding and Repair
3,892
1
5
—
—
—


15.
Additional Married Quarters
—
17,213
7
3
15,592
11
11
—



Balances Irrecoverable and Claims Abandoned
89,417
4
0
—
—
—




708,880
8
4
279,414
7
8
4,340,752
0
9
6,046,738
6
9




Total Deficits:
Total Surpluses:




£988,294 16s. 0d.
£10,387,490 7s. 6d.




Net Surplus £9,399,195 11s. 6d.

Services as is necessary to meet the net deficit of £1,620 15s. 4d. on Vote 15 that would otherwise have been met by issues out of the Consolidated Fund under the Armed Forces (Housing Loans) Acts, 1949 and 1952.

(2) the application of so much of the remainder of the said total surpluses on certain Grants for Navy Services as is necessary to make good the remainder of the said total deficits on other Grants for Navy Services.

8.35 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. J. Enoch Powell): I beg to move, That the application of such sums be sanctioned.
The Public Accounts Committee, in its Second Report for this session, reported upon the exercise of virement—

Mr. Ellis Smith: On a point of order. It has been usual to take these Motions together, Sir William. Do you propose to do that tonight?

The Deputy-Chairman (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray): My intention was to give an opportunity to vote on each of the three Motions separately.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Thank you, Sir William. I hope that you will carry that intention out. I have the OFFICIAL REPORT of our proceedings on 4th July, 1956, before me, and on that occasion I find that they were all taken together in our debate in order to prevent repetition, and then we were provided with an opportunity of voting afterwards.

The Deputy-Chairman: That is my understanding.

Mr. Powell: The brief remarks which I was going to address to the Committee are, in fact, equally applicable to all three Motions, and I was not proposing to trouble the Committee again when I came to the remaining two.
As I was saying, the Public Accounts Committee has reported on the exercise of virement between the votes of Service Departments. It reviewed the exercise by the Treasury of its powers to sanction virement provisionally, and saw no reason why Parliament should not sanction the virement which has temporarily been authorised by the Treasury in its Minutes laid before the House in February of this year.
The purpose of the Motion in respect of the Navy, and the following Motions in respect of the other two Services, is to give that Parliamentary sanction to virement temporarily authorised by the Treasury.

Mr. A. G. Bottomley: While what the Financial Secretary has said is quite true, the House has only the opportunity of sanctioning the transfer of surpluses from one

Service Vote to another to clear deficits incurred in another grant in the same Service. The Public Accounts Committee, as he has said, has considered the matter and, moreover, the matter has gone to the Treasury itself, the matter before us being its recommendations. On the other hand, the House of Commons is prevented from debating the matter in detail.
It is not for me to make any comment upon whether H.M.S. "Kent" ought to have been built in Chatham Dockyard, but we in this Committee can be concerned only with the method of transfer and the surpluses transferred. I could, of course, argue that we could meet these deficits by an excess Vote, but, supposing that we did that, we should, I think, be in the same position as we are now. We should not be afforded an opportunity of debating the details, because, if there was an excess Vote, it would come under the guillotine of the Finance Bill, and the House would be deprived of an opportunity of debate.
I put it to the Financial Secretary, who is an eminent scholar, that the original intention in separating the Service Votes from the other Estimates was that Parliament wanted to be assured that there was a most careful scrutiny and control of Service Estimates. Today, the opposite is the case. When we debate the Service Estimates, we select the Vote and we debate that, and most of the other Estimates are not debated at all. To this extent, our practice violates the original Parliamentary principle upholding the glorious Revolution of 1688.
I know that the Financial Secretary himself cannot do anything about this, but I suggest to him that it might be worth looking at from the point of view of Parliamentary accountability. Is there not good reason for this matter to be considered further with a view to affording the House of Commons an opportunity to debate the details as well as consider it as we are in discussing the Motion tonight.

Mr. Ellis Smith: It was on 4th July, 1956, at 11.20 p.m., that I made some observations on a similar Motion. I thought it was disgraceful that it should come up at that time of night. We are, therefore, making a little progress with regard to


time, because it is now only 8.40 p.m. and many hon. Members will have an opportunity of taking part in this debate.
I have before me the Order Paper for last year, when the total surpluses were, on page 184, approximately £74 million, on the next page £17 million, and on the next page £44½ million. This year, the surpluses are equally great. On one page, we find the figure of £10⅓ million, on another page £26 million, and on another page a total surplus of £95½ million. In my view, the continuation of the use of virement to this extent is a national scandal, on which it is time that the House took a stand. For my part, that is what I intend to do.
This afternoon, had it been necessary for me to do so, I would have paid tribute to a very great gentleman whom it has never been my privilege to meet. For many years, I have followed the Reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Reports of that character are not produced without a great deal of work. They are excellent Reports, but I should like to ask how often they are considered.
I know that we are not allowed to analyse the figures which are before us tonight. It would be out of order for me to discuss how the millions of pounds of surpluses have been used to meet deficits and how all this is increasing. I know that the rule which prevents me from speaking upon those scandalous figures was agreed to 100 years ago, when the House dealt merely with hundreds of pounds. Now, we are dealing with millions of pounds and yet we must abide strictly by the Monk Resolution of 100 years ago.
I know that to remain in order I must abide by that Resolution of 100 years ago; but it is out-of-date. How can we carry out our duties in this House, how can we insist upon the Parliamentary control of national expenditure, if we continue to acquiesce in an out-of-date Resolution of the kind that the Monk Resolution is?
I have made a careful study of Erskine May, which I have with me in case I am challenged, and at the weekend I again made a careful study of the Standing Orders. I spoke upon this for a considerable time last year and do not intend to reiterate what I said. I do, however, intend to make a modern

application of the issues at stake in order to clear myself, no matter what any other hon. Member does.
8.45 p.m.
In my view, it is time that the House made a critical examination of the ruling of almost 100 years ago so that we can modernise ourselves and bring ourselves up to date. I have before me the Second Report of the Committee of Public Accounts, which contains the heading:
Virement between Votes of Service Departments.
If anybody wants to check this, it was published in the Session 1956–57, it was signed on 28th May, 1957, and I am referring to page 3. It states:
… subject to subsequent confirmation by Parliament "—
and I want to emphasise those words, because I am not prepared to sanction scandalous figures of this description—
the application of surpluses on any Votes of a Service Department to meet deficits on other Votes of the same Department.
Approximately £100 million are at stake, and all we have had put before us is this meagre report. That was all very well in the days when the Monk Resolution was agreed to but that was a hundred years ago. In those days the sums were counted in hundreds of pounds. We are now dealing with millions of pounds. Therefore, we ought to deal with the matter in a way different from that of those years. Does the Treasury consider it sound business to allow approximately £100 million to be juggled with in this way?
I heard the Minister of Labour and National Service speak on the television the other night, and I was impressed by the answer which he gave in that "Press Conference". His desire was obvious, and I hope it is the desire of all of us. It is certainly mine, as it must be of anyone who had the experience which I had of seeing the effects of inflation upon the millions of the German people during the time of the Army of Occupation.
Surely the time has arrived when we ought to seize every opportunity to bring home to the Government, to bring home to the Treasury, to bring home to everybody, that we are not—or ought not to be—prepared to acquiesce in this juggling with millions of pounds of our fellow countrymen's money. At the same time as the Treasury acquiesces in this


business, constant appeals are made by the Government to industry to increase output, to curb proposals for investment or expenditure in this direction and that direction.

The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Gordon Touche): I am sorry to interrupt, but I think the hon. Member is getting very far away from the Question, which is a very narrow one.

Mr. Ellis Smith: I accept that, Sir Gordon, but if you would be good enough to look at the Official Report of similar proceedings last year you will find that I spoke on that occasion at considerable length, and was allowed, as any hon. Member was entitled to do, provided he did not go outside certain limits, to introduce examples of the kind I did. I quite agree that this Question is a narrow one, and, apart from the example I was giving to illustrate my argument, I intend to continue in the way I did on the last occasion, and to keep in order.
Approximately £100 million are at stake here. The money has been juggled with between surpluses and deficits. I know I am not allowed to question how the money has been used, but I am in order in dealing with the total amounts, and to show that on this occasion the total amounts at stake are approximately £100 million, and to point out that the Treasury is prepared to allow this sort of thing to go on until Parliament has an opportunity of confirming it. I am not prepared to confirm it. I am not prepared to confirm the continuance of this sort of thing while there is a serious inflationary situation.
I understand that these sums must be confirmed separately, because the words on the Order Paper are:
That the application of such sums be sanctioned.
That implies that if we really mean business we ought to have three Divisions tonight. My copy of Erskine May is rather out of date, but the words on page 501 of the thirteenth edition, under the heading "Navy, Army and Air Force", are:
… the navy and air force have, and the army until recently had, the power of applying the surpluses … in cases where such expenditure is of public advantage.

That is the qualification. Unfortunately, I have to accept the existence of that power, but not a word has been said today in evidence that the surpluses have been used to the public advantage.
We ought to have an explanation before we approve of these accounts. How does Parliament know that this sum of £100 million has been spent to the public advantage? If we are not to be informed on that point, how are we to perform our historic duty to retain Parliamentary control over public expenditure? I understand that it is the duty of the Committee of Supply to offer constructive criticism.

The Deputy-Chairman: Order. We are not now in Committee of Supply.

Mr. Ellis Smith: That is quite true, Sir Gordon, but if you would be good enough to be a little magnanimous you will shortly see the point that I am trying to make. How can the Committee carry out its duty if surpluses of millions of pounds are used to meet millions of pounds of deficits? The Treasury uses the power of virement and that, in my view, is a big contribution to inflation. The Government are constantly appealing for increased output and at the same time, authorising millions of pounds to be used in this way. The Treasury authorised the millions of pounds which were mentioned on the Order Paper last year, and it has authorised the millions of pounds which we are now discussing.
How much longer is this practice to continue? It is equivalent to the Treasury authorising a blank cheque without Parliament's signature. That is the logic of this operation. Parliament is now asked to authorise what the Treasury temporarily agreed to, subject to that authorisation. In plain language, it means that the Treasury has given the Navy, Army and Air Force a blank cheque and the right to use these millions of pounds as they wish, and now it is asking us to validate that cheque.
The House of Commons does not, or should not, vote money unless it is required. The Crown has asked for this money. Our own Money Resolutions in the House of Commons are tightly drawn. I remember the time when they were tightened up. Our hands are tied. We cannot move Amendments to Money Resolutions. Yet the military authorities can juggle about with money in this way.


During the past twelve months we have had economies in the children's dinners, children's milk, the schools and hospitals —

The Deputy-Chairman: I am afraid that the hon. Member cannot go into that.

Mr. Ellis Smith: What I am doing now is contrasting the effect of playing about with millions, in the way the Government have done, with the treatment of the people to whom we belong. As long as the Treasury continues to use virement in this way, Sir Gordon, it is in order to compare the application of millions of pounds in one instance with another, provided that I do not go too far outside these limits. This is all subject to Parliamentary sanction and, as far as I am concerned, it does not obtain my sanction.
I conclude with the following points. This country is in a serious economic position. The men I belong to have to estimate to a farthing in order to meet foreign competition. Yet the Treasury, but its use of the out-of-date procedure of virement, can allow the military authorities to use millions of pounds this year, approximately £100 million, to cover the sloppy estimating which has brought about the deficits.
At the same time, industry is making the best contribution it can, meeting the constant appeals of the Treasury. Here, I am not speaking critically of the military people, though I owe them nothing, having served under some of them; it does not matter on which side of the Committee they sit, because there is little difference in certain circumstances. Therefore, I am not speaking critically of them this evening. The people responsible for this serious situation, for this national scandal, are those in the Treasury, which comes to this House of Commons constantly with all kinds of proposals, and continually issues White Papers.
No one gives the Treasury more credit than I do, but I say that, as regards this out-of-date procedure, the time has arrived when somebody should make a stand. In my opinion it should be the duty of the whole Committee to take a stand on this matter, because it is scandalous that £100 million of our countrymen's money should be played about with in this way. No one in industry

would hold his job many days if he behaved in this way. Accountants have to estimate to within a few pence. I am a member of a trade union which is subject to Government audit, and we have to answer for every farthing. Yet the Treasury, by the use of virement, can juggle with millions to this extent. It is for those reasons I have made these observations.

Mr. Wilfred Fienburgh: I shall direct my few remarks to the Motion covering the virement in respect of the Army. I noticed the usual rather amused grin on the face of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury during the closing stages of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith). It was a most inappropriate way to greet a most serious point. This annual procedure is becoming an annual Parliamentary farce, and the sooner that is said, and the sooner something is done about it, the better will be the conduct of Parliamentary business.
We are in this difficulty, that these sums are disposed from one Vote to another. We cannot discuss the basic principle of that transfer. We should be ruled out of order if we tried to discuss the detail of the transfer. When one has excluded both the principle and the detail, one is left with a very narrow territory upon which to manoeuvre to discuss a transfer of amounts totalling £100 million. I look back on the Rulings over the past few years and find that the only thing one can discuss is the accountancy of the operation and, in particular, the Treasury's own control of that accountancy. It is to that aspect of the matter that I propose to devote a few remarks.
9.0 p.m.
I could make a case that the whole of the accounts before us have got to the state of being nothing more than an elaborate fiction. We are in theory still governed by Mr. Monk's Resolution. That was precise. It laid certain duties upon the Treasury. But we find that by a review of the Parliamentary supply procedure undertaken by the Public Accounts Committee in 1933:
… it is now the practice to mention only approximate figures (or, if the transfers are minor ones, no figures at all) in the March Minute….


That is the Minute that we are now discussing.
If we have reached the stage where we are discussing only approximations—

Mr. Powell: Mr. Powellindicated dissent.

Mr. Fienburgh: The Financial Secretary shakes his head. I shall be very glad to be corrected upon the point if I am wrong.

Mr. Powell: We are discussing the precise figures in the Minute of February of this year.

Mr. Fienburgh: The document which I have in front of me relates to the Parliamentary Supply procedure and says:
The 'Monk' Minute is, in fact a provisional warning to Parliament additional to the substantive statement required by the Appropriation Act. As a result of a review by the Public Accounts Committee in 1933, it is now the practice to mention only approximate figures (or, if the transfers are minor ones, 110 figures at all) in the March Minute and to confine the Minute to a short statement of the facts …
What we are in effect discussing is an approximation, according to that statement.
I do not intend to rest my case upon that point. I want to say a word about the Army methods of accountancy which give rise to the need of excessive employment of virement—and the Treasury cannot avoid some responsibility in this matter because it remains a Treasury responsibility to supervise and co-ordinate accountancy methods of the Services. I think that it was Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery who said that Army accountancy assumes that every man is a crook and, if he is not, it sets out to make him one. Because the whole of the Army's system of accountancy is based upon the need to prevent misappropriation from Votes which the House of Commons has theoretically approved and, further, to prevent the need for excessive virement from one account to the other there is more concern in the Army system of accountancy in exercising this tight control than in getting value for the money expended upon the supervision of accounts.
In fact, as was said in an article in The Times:
The larger sum is often spent in pursuit of the smaller.

The reason why estimating procedures go wrong so often in the Army, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South pointed out, is that the Army has no adequate system of cost accounting. Add to the deficiencies in estimating the cost of the close scrutiny; add to that an annual exercise, and this process of virement, and we get some rather distressing results.
In The Times some time ago there was reported the story of the annual spending spree which goes on in the Service Departments towards the end of the financial year, when they have deficits on certain accounts but they have not spent their Vote. What I am saying applies not to the Army in Whitehall but to the sub-allocations of Votes which reach the commands and districts. There is an annual spending spree when the end of the financial year approaches because, in part due to the reluctance of the Service Departments to exercise the right of virement—and here I disagree with my hon. Friend; they really are reluctant to exercise this right of virement, because it involves them in a lot of complicated explanations which the Treasury do not regard idly—they try to spend on the particular Vote instead of making a request for virement.
The instance was given some time ago of an Army district in Germany where the engineer rang up the battalion commander and said, "I have 10,000 Deutschemarks to spend before the end of my financial year. What can you use them on?" The battalion commander said, "We can use some for improvement to our married quarters." That was not done, because it was not in the running. On that Vote on which there was that excess, the officer would have had, in the long process to the War Office and the Treasury, to apply for virement in order to use that 10,000 marks for the repair of married quarters, because that was allocated to a different Vote. So the officers sought a way of spending the money, and they put asphalt down on the parade ground, which did not need it, as it was a perfectly good parade ground.

Mr. Ellis Smith: The situation now seems much more serious than I stated it to be.

Mr. Fienburgh: Between my details and the details given by my hon. Friend


I hope that we shall persuade the Financial Secretary to the Treasury that there is something which needs to be looked at.
The Army is in many ways a large industrial concern today. I know that the sharp end of it is a fighting instrument but the blunt end is R.E.M.E. workshops, stores, R.A.S.C. dumps, enormous works services and enormous capital equipment. Treasury sanction has to be sought for this, and there is often delay in getting it. What I am asking for in detail is that something should be done to look into the Army's method of accountancy. This may well apply to other Services. It is my argument that the system—lack of cost accounts and of up-to-date methods —leads to bad estimating, which would be bad enough in itself, but it leads to constant recourse to the process of virement. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South has pointed out, the more this exercise is applied the less detailed Parliamentary control there is over the use of defence funds.
This is now becoming an annual farce. The Monk Resolution was passed about 1879. It is avoided nowadays. Moreover this Committee of the House has been subjected during the last few years, through no fault of the Chair, to a large number of conflicting Rulings from one stage to another, from Committee stage to Report stage. I think the Financial Secretary will agree that, by careful selection, quotations can be taken from Rulings of the Chair which will suit practically any case. It is largely the luck of the draw whether one gets away with what one has to say or not. It depends sometimes upon whether there has been a change in the occupany of the Chair from one stage to another. We are dealing with a sum of over £100 million, but the procedure has been reduced to the level of a ludicrous farce.
If an hon. Member now wishes to raise a detailed point of military expenditure it is almost impossible for him to do so. The Estimates have become the occasion for a general debate on Vote A. The Supplementary Estimates very rarely provide an opportunity, while the Excess Votes rule out detailed discussion. The virement process tops off the whole thing like the froth on a bottle of beer and makes it impossible for us to raise detailed points.
As the years have rolled by, a financial and accountancy procedure which was designed to help this House to control the expenditure of the Services has become so distorted, lost and confused that it beats any attempt by hon. Members to do that very thing. I challenge any hon. Member here who may have a constitutional point of a financial nature, or a general point, to raise it without doing three weeks' homework on Army procedure in advance and having constant consultations with the Table Office.
Something should now be done seriously about these matters. A Select Committee is now looking at the Estimates debates procedure. We had a foretaste of its report when we debated the interim recommendations by way of the suspension or the removal of the intervening Motion during the Estimates debate.
That Select Committee of the House is still discussing the estimating and financial control of this House over the Armed Services. I suggest that the Financial Secretary would be doing a service to this House, relieving the Chair of its annual burden and relieving hon. Members who try to take this matter seriously of an intolerably difficult task, if he would suggest to the Leader of the House, or his side of the House, whichever is the appropriate quarter, that this whole business of virement—what is debatable upon it, how it is handled by the House of Commons—should now be referred along with the other matters to the Select Committee already sitting, in the hope that in future we shall have a more reasonable, tidy and sensible approach to this very expensive business.

Question put and agreed to.

II. Whereas it appears by the Army Appropriation Account for the year ended the 3'1 st day of March, 1956, that the aggregate Expenditure on Army Services has not exceeded the aggregate sums appropriated for those Services and that, as shown in the Schedule hereto appended, the net surplus of the Exchequer Grants for Army Services over the net Expenditure is £8,481,349 9s. 1d. Viz:—




£
s.
d.


Total Surpluses
…
26,515,975
6
8


Total Deficits
…
18,034,625
17
7


Net Surplus
…
£8,481,349
9
1

And whereas the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury have temporarily authorised:
(1) the application of so much of the realised surplus on Vote 8 for Army Services as is necessary to meet the net deficit of £1,179,464 4s. 7d. on Vote 11 that would otherwise have been met by issues out of the Consolidated Fund under the Armed

SCHEDULE


No. of Vote
Army Services 1955–56 Votes
Deficits
Surpluses


Excesses of Actual over Estimated Gross Expenditure
Deficiencies of Actual as compared with Estimated Receipts
Surpluses of Estimated over Actual Gross Expenditure
Surpluses of Actual as compared with Estimated Receipts




£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.


1.
Pay, &amp;c., of the Army
4,006,130
3
8
1,614,162
7
4
—
—


2.
Reserve Forces, Territorial Army, Home Guard and Cadet Forces
—
—
1,397,592
9
3
41,619
13
11


3.
War Office
116,551
13
9
—
—
33,803
13
9


4.
Civilians
—
1,498,410
3
1
2,424,347
6
7
—


5.
Movements
721,049
16
1
1,025,310
17
7
—
—


6.
Supplies, &amp;c.
—
1,346,940
12
5
2,917,236
11
3
—


7.
Stores
—
—
10,770,886
4
0
2,654,448
12
9


8.
Works, Buildings and Lands
—
1,115,667
1
5
5,436,606
6
7
—


9.
Miscellaneous Effective Services
3,305,237
18
5
849,151
8
7
—
—


10.
Non-Effective Services
319,219
7
3
—
—
18,898
13
2


11.
Additional Married Quarters
—
2,000,000
0
0
820,535
15
5
—


—
Balances Irrecoverable and Claims Abandoned
116,794
8
0
—
—
—




8,584,983
7
2
9,449,642
10
5
23,767,204
13
1
2,748,770
13
7




Total Deficits:
Total Surpluses:




£18,034,625 17s. 7d.
£26,515,975 6s. 8d.




Net Surplus £8,481,349 9s. 1d.

Resolved, That the application of such sums be sanctioned.—[Mr. Powell.]

III. Whereas it appears by the Air Appropriation Account for the year ended the 31st day of March, 1956, that the aggregate Expenditure on Air Services has not exceeded the aggregate sums appropriated for those Services and that, as shown in the Schedule hereto appended, the net surplus of the Exchequer Grants for Air Services over the net Expenditure is £76,660,356 6s. 4d. viz:—




£
s.
d.


Total Surpluses
…
95,460,215
17
9


Total Deficits
…
18,799,859
11
5


Net Surplus
…
£76,660,356
6
4

Forces (Housing Loans) Acts, 1949 and 1953.

(2) the application of so much of the remainder of the said total surpluses on certain Grants for Army Services as is necessary to make good the remainder of the said total deficits on other Grants for Army Services.

And whereas the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury have temporarily authorized:

(1) the application of so much of the realised surplus on Vote 8 for Air Services as is necessary to meet the net deficit of £3,090,938 12s. 10d. on Vote 11 that would otherwise have been met by issues out of the Consolidated Fund under the Armed Forces (Housing Loans) Acts, 1949 and 1953.
(2) the application of so much of the remainder of the said total surpluses on certain Grants for Air Services as is necessary to make good the remainder of the said total deficits on other Grants for Air Services.

SCHEDULE


No. of Vote
Army Services 1955–56 Votes
Deficits
Surpluses


Excesses of Actual over Estimated Gross Expenditure
Deficiencies of Actual as compared with Estimated Receipts
Surpluses of Estimated over Actual Gross Expenditure
Surpluses of Actual as compared with Estimated Receipts




£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.


1.
Pay, &amp;c., of the Air Force
—
—
680,591
17
0
25,684
5
11


2.
Reserve and Auxiliary Services
—
31,407
0
4
244,771
14
8
—


3.
Air Ministry
106 869
17
9
—
—
2,129
13
0


4.
Civilians at Out-stations
493,440
13
0
371,428
14
0
—
—


5.
Movements
96,886
5
6
—
—
221,487
8
8


6.
Supplies
—
—
15,816,866
1
10
1,248,038
9
8


7.
Aircraft and Stores
—
12,229,378
5
1
69,932,704
19
2
—


8.
Works and Lands
—
563,202
18
8
6,254,882
8
2
—


9.
Miscellaneous Effective Services
—
906,028
5
9
245,821
16
1
—


10.
Non-Effective Services
193,010
12
7
—
—
78,175
16
5


11.
Additional Married Quarters
—
3,800,000
0
0
709,061
7
2
—


—
Balances Irrecoverable and Claims Abandoned
8,206
18
9
—
—
—




898,414
7
7
17,901,445
3
10
93,884,700
4
1
1,575,515
13
8




Total Deficits:
Total Surpluses:




£18,799,859 11s. 5d.
£95,460,215 17s. 9d.




Net Surplus £76,660,356 6s. 4d.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the application of such sums be sanctioned.—[Mr. Powell.]

Mr. Ellis Smith: Is not the Financial Secretary going to say more about this?

Question put and agreed to.

Resolutions to be reported Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — POSTAL AND TELEPHONE SERVICES

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. E. Wakefield.]

9.15 p.m.

Mr. F. P. Crowder (Ruislip-Northwood): I am glad to have an opportunity this evening of raising the question of shared telephone lines and postal services, in particular in my constituency of Ruislip and Northwood, and in general throughout the country.
So far as my constituency is concerned, I should like to emphasise the fact that during the seven and a half years that I have represented it I have had an inordinately large number of complaints about lack of telephone facilities, and the inefficiency of telephone and postal facilities in that district. I have devoted considerable time, effort and industry to ameliorating this position and I am happy to say that things are very much better today—I hope partially as the result of my efforts—than they were five, six or seven years ago.
Here I desire to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend and his predecessors. They have always treated my continual, and what must have been wearisome, inquiries with the greatest courtesy. They have gone into every single case, and, as a result of our co-operation, the interest which the Minister has shown and the conscientious manner in which he has dealt with every single one of my inquiries, things are very much better today than they were some years ago. But much still remains to be done, not only in Ruislip and Northwood, but throughout the country.
It seems to me not altogether inappropriate that we should have the Assistant Postmaster-General replying to this debate on a day when we see in the Daily Express that there is a possibility that charges for postal services, telephones and the like, may be increased before we go away for the Recess. It is very seldom that Her Majesty's Government give back benchers such as I notice of such intentions, but, happily, the Press can be useful on such occasions, and this may, therefore, be an occasion on which to offer the Minister a salutary word of warning.
Whatever may be said from the political angle, let it be remembered that this Government was returned on two occasions, the last time and in 1951, principally with one object. That was to reduce the cost of living; and in reducing the cost of living one does not expect them to proceed by raising telephone charges. I say that for this reason, in the main, because in the public eye the Post Office is nothing more nor less than a monopoly—a monopoly which has been used for many years as a tax-collecting instrument by the Government. That was certainly so before the war, and I think that I am right in saying—my hon. Friend will correct me if I am not—that in a different sense it is the same today, because the Post Office makes a very large profit, as indeed do other firms, and that profit is handed over to the ever-grasping fingers of the Revenue and the Treasury.
When one compares the position with that before the war and considers some of the prices the Post Office is charging and some of the services it is giving, one begins to wonder how it can ever be contemplated for one moment that there should be an increase. I had expected that after six years of Conservative Government we should be beginning to see a decrease in postal and telephone charges and an increase in efficiency.
Let me give an example. I remember how very pleased we all were before the war, in 1937 or 1938—and I was particularly pleased at the time because, being an undergraduate, I was necessarily very hard up—when we were able to send a telegram for 6d. The late Sir Kingsley Wood was responsible for that. What does a telegram cost today? The minimum charge is 3s. 6d. One is only too ready to acknowledge the fact which, as hon. Members, we have acknowledged personally in respect of ourselves today, that costs have gone up and that we can more or less multiply prices by three compared with before the war. Nevertheless, one would think that if the Post Office were running its affairs in accordance with inflation, be it under a Socialist Government or under a Tory Government, 1s. 6d. would be the minimum charge. In fact, it is 3s. 6d. and we are told by the Daily Express that the charge may rise even higher.
How much does a greetings telegram cost? What is the minimum charge? It is 4s.—an extra 6d. Here is a fraud on the public, because it is an extra 6d. for a piece of paper with a few coloured pre-Raphaelite drawings on it. I understand that it costs the Post Office between¼d. and ½d. Hon. Members opposite in the past have talked about profits, but if ever there were a matter which should go before the Monopolies Commission to be dealt with by the severest penalties and fines, surely it is the case of the greetings telegram.
I understand quite well the difficulties with which my right hon. Friend has to cope in respect of telegrams. Obviously, with the increased costs of fuel, petrol and motor cars, in deep country districts it can cost a great deal to send one telegram up into the hills. The fact is, however, that if one person in London wishes to send a telegram to another person in London, on his birthday, he can decide to economise and not to pay the profit of 5d. on 6d. on the greetings telegram. He can send a rather ordinary and rather dirty-looking piece of paper, with the words often arriving incorrectly, for 3s. 6d.; and if the person to whom the telegram is sent has the good fortune to own a telephone and it is not a shared line, there is a good chance that within an hour someone will ring him up and dictate the telegram over the telephone. Of course, had they both possessed a telephone it would have been easiest to have spent 4d. by making a telephone call. The person who sent the telegram of friendship and greetings on a birthday or anniversary could then have been 3s. 2d. better off.
Why cannot we have a system under which, if the recipient of a telegram possesses a telephone or a telephone number, a reduced rate of 4d. or 6d. is charged if it is agreed that the telegram shall be telephoned to the person to whom it is addressed? After all, very little labour is involved—no motor cars, no boys on bicycles, nothing of that sort. I think that I am right in saying that in the cheap call time between six and ten o'clock at night, it costs less than 3s. 6d. to telephone the North of Scotland, and in three minutes one can speak many more than twelve words. The charge is outrageous, and something which I do not think that the people will tolerate, particularly if this Department which is,

as it were, annoying them in this way is shortly to ask them to pay even more for such a service.
I fully appreciate that people who live in outlying districts and who probably need to send only one or two telegrams a year will probably have to pay a little more, but I really think that there should be some differentiation. At the moment, those telegram charges are grossly high in one particular case, and in others a little low compared with the service asked for and given.
I come now to the question of shared telephone lines. In this respect, what my constituents, in particular—and, I think, most other people—have in mind is an announcement made in this House just about ten years ago, in December, 1947, by the then Postmaster-General. We were then given to understand that because the war had been over for just over a year people would temporarily—temporarily and for the time being—he asked occasionally to share a telephone line. The reason given was that the Post Office had been hindered in many directions by the war effort, that it lacked capital expenditure and so on, and wanted to get on its feet again.
I do not think that anybody liked that, but in such circumstances the British people are sensible. Not for one moment did they think it was the thin end of the wedge. Accordingly, they accepted that proposition. It now comes as a surprise, and a hitter surprise, to many people to learn that that statement has, in fact, turned out to be the thin end of the wedge. How often has it happened in this House that a Minister has produced some form of policy which is said to be only a temporary expedient to meet a time of crisis, yet we find within a very few years that the temporary expedient, which was unpleasant but necessary, has become Government policy. I shall never forget, and again I refer to the late Sir Kingsley Wood, the "temporary expedient" of Purchase Tax. One knows very well that that Purchase Tax is, in the main, responsible for all our present inflationary and economic troubles. I say that in passing, Mr. Speaker, for the simple reason that I know as well as you do that I am out of order in mentioning it.
I have in my hand a letter written to the Eastcote Residents' Association in my


constituency—and we were at particular pains to find out what the Government's policy really was. The letter reads:

"Dear Sir,

Party telephone lines.

It is agreed that the principle of sharing telephone lines was adopted as an expedient by the Post Office in order to assist with the very serious problem of meeting the heavy demand in the post-war years. The system, however, proved so successful "—

rather like Purchase Tax:
that a great deal of development work has been done on it, and it has now come to be regarded as a permanent part of the telephone system. You will accordingly expect that the future Post Office policy on this subject will be to continue shared service as a permanent feature.

The gentleman who signed that letter is a person named Hudson who is apparently the head of the North-West Telephone Area, London, of Telephone House, Shoot Up Hill—I do not know whether that refers to prices shooting up —N.W.2.

The Government should realise that they cannot continue to get away with this sort of thing. People do not like shared telephone lines, or very few people like them. Occasionally, people can be persuaded to like them temporarily if that is the only possible method by which they can save a small business and have a service of that sort for the time being.

There is also this side to the question. What is the difference between a tapped telephone and a shared telephone? One is listened to by Home Office officials, while the other is listened to—is it not?—by anyone who happens to be in a house or establishment on the other part of the shared line. I would ask this question. If the Government are really serious in their decision to continue with this system of shared service as a permanent feature, would not it be possible—and here I confess I do not know the technicalities involved—to ensure that when two persons are speaking on a shared line, it will be quite impossible for a third party to listen in?

As my right hon. Friend knows very well indeed, there are large numbers of people, professional and otherwise, who have very good reason for not wishing their conversations to be overheard. I do not say that these conversations are

in any way ones of which for one moment they would be ashamed, but they are often conversations of a confidential character.

Take an ordinary private citizen, a person who is in no way privileged. Let us suppose that he decides to ring up his bank manager to discuss what quite a number of people have to discuss today —the matter of his overdraft and so forth. It is not very desirable for him that other people should have the opportunity to listen to that conversation. There is nothing wrong in it at all, but the effect of this system is that if the individual concerned is on a shared line he is debarred from having such a conversation.

Equally, there are people who are in competition in business. They do not necessarily wish information spread around about their latest ideas and ventures, but under the shared line system they can all very easily be jeopardised in that respect. There are people whose business is necessarily of a confidential nature, such as doctors. Here again, it is undesirable for their conversations to be overheard and reported, particularly in small communities where gossip can rage like a tornado.

Then there are members of my own profession, that is, members of the Bar, which has been under some scrutiny in the past few weeks. There again, it is undesirable that the conversations one may have from time to time with solicitors should necessarily be open, as it were, to the public ear.

Will my hon. Friend tell us who are the people who are safe from the visiting Post Office representatives, who go round to people, as happened to my constituent, telling them, "You are going to share a line, whether you like it or not, and if you raise any objection, you shall have no telephone service at all." I have evidence of that here, and I shall refer to it later. In other words, what I am asking is who is safe from the visits of the telephone representative making that demand? It is not, under the present regime, made as a request; unfortunately, it is made as a demand. I take it that Her Majesty's judges and people in like positions are exempt from that kind of visitation, but the time has come, in my opinion, when people generally should


know who is protected from the enforced imposition of the shared line.

I come now to another matter, the shortage of telephones in my constituency. There is no doubt at all that the atmosphere created by the representatives of the Post Office in relation to the granting of telephones to people has been, to put it at its kindest, a most unhappy one. We have had instance after instance of the right hand obviously not knowing what the left hand was doing. There is a very strong feeling that, when a telephone is granted, it is, as it were, granted half as a favour, rather like a chop used to be handed under the counter in 1943. That feeling is a very genuine one. I know that it is difficult to point to any particular instance, but I can say with absolute certainty, having been through the whsle of my correspondence, after writing to the council and the various associations in estates where we have had trouble, that there is always that feeling that, if a telephone is granted, it is granted, as it were, as a personal favour from the civil servant, bureaucrat or official concerned.

There is today throughout the country, a very real lack of confidence in the Post Office and I believe that we can get over that lack of confidence merely by having a list of applicants for telephones in each local Post Office. All that needs to happen is that, as each applicant gets a telephone, the name is crossed out. I know that there may be certain difficulties because priorities will be involved. For that reason, we should be told what the priorities are. For instance, does a doctor come within the same category of priority as a High Court judge? If a doctor and a High Court judge both apply on the same day, who is the first to get it? The public wants to know where it is in this matter. Who is privileged, and exactly what is the degree of privilege? I am absolutely certain that there would have been far less trouble in my constituency —which has been a difficult problem for my hon. Friend, I fully acknowledge—if some such system had been adopted.

There really have been some most extraordinary performances. I have been worrying my hon. Friend's Department about the situation in a place called the Copse Wood Estate for about two and a half years now. Many very responsible

people live in that estate. To take a typical example, a bank manager living there needed a telephone. He had to wait for just under two years. He was the first to acknowledge the difficulties which confronted my hon. Friend and his Department.

What really upset him, and all his friends on the estate also, was the number of promises and half promises which were handed out to them month after month. First, they were not going to have a telephone at all. Then, they might possibly have one within two months. Getting a cheap motor car in the first two months after the war in dealing with the motor trade—a most highly undesirable body of people in that respect—is nothing compared with what my constituents have gone through with the Post Office.

I can give a specific instance. There was a lady living on the Copse Wood Estate named Mrs. Turrell. She, poor dear, went along and said that she did not mind having even a shared line. She was told by the Post Office representative that no shared lines were being allowed on the estate. As she knew that there were two opposite her, one can understand that there is a certain lack of confidence in the way that the Post Office is carrying out its duties in the area. As I say, however, in fairness to my hon. Friend, although it has taken about two and a half years, the situation in the Copse Wood Estate is very much improved.

I said earlier that the attitude which is adopted is sometimes a little undesirable. There is a gentleman called Mr. Vagyon who lives in my constituency. He has had considerable correspondence in this matter. Unfortunately, he was at one time a foreigner. He felt that that was perhaps being held against him—which, of course, it was not; but he was, and still is, extremely ill. He has to have injections literally within a matter of half an hour or so if he is to survive.

He was told that he had to share a telephone line. Quite properly, it may be thought, he raised objection and his problem. He received a letter headed
Lt.-Col. J. C. Rowe, T.D., Telephone Manager.


What "Lt.-Col." has to do with it, unless it is to add a little authority, I do not know. The letter ended by saying:
I trust you will consider the matter, as I am afraid your continued refusal to share your line may result in the termination and withdrawal of your service.
That may be the language of Colonel Rowe when in the Army, but to a man who is seriously ill, who is a good and loyal citizen of this country, I do not think that is quite the correct attitude for a Department which is a tax-gathering monopoly—and which is about to raise its charges—to adopt towards the British public. On my constituent's behalf, I feel entitled to make complaint this evening.

I can well understand equally the difficulties with which Colonel Rowe has to contend and we all receive letters from our constituents which in our minds must at times prompt similar replies, but this sort of thing has a nasty smell of Crichel Down and the heavy bureaucrat about it who is wielding the absolute power of monopoly. That, of course, is the sort of thing which my right hon. Friend, myself and, I know, hon. Members opposite would wish to prevent.

Perhaps I might refer briefly to the Raisins Hill Estate, a new estate in my constituency, with 144 flats and houses, sometimes, I believe, referred to as dwelling units—possibly by the Post Office. The estate is having difficulty in securing any telephones, even to the extent of finding it difficult to have a telephone kiosk placed anywhere near the estate. It is a curious thing, however, that within a matter of yards adjoining that estate there is a Government office building in Tollcarne Drive and another in Chamberlain Way adjoining the Estate, and there are Government premises, not inappropriately, at a place called Cuckoo Hill. Odd though it may seem, although those premises adjoin the estate, and although the difficulties are such that the estate can have no telephones, the people in those Government offices quite properly are equipped with telephones. I ask, therefore, that that matter be looked into.

I will give two quick examples of the sort of things which happen to the wretched taxpayer and telephone subscriber. I take the experience of Mr. Gallant of my constituency on 12th January. Mr. Gallant, who, it may be

thought, is well named, awakes in the morning, and possibly decides to telephone, and looks out, on a cold, wintry day, to find the whole of his telephone wire neatly coiled in the garden and trees being felled all around it. One can understand that if trees are felled it may be necessary to disconnect the telephone lines, but one would not have thought that there could have been very much harm in notifying the subscriber.

After all, the subscriber pays a lot of money to have a telephone. I hope we shall be told tonight how much less money a year he pays if a shared service or tapped service is imposed upon him, because in my view the reduction should be drastic in the extreme. Indeed, as a lawyer I should have thought that the imposition would have incurred the heaviest possible damages because of the original contract with the Post Office—but, of course, as we know, that has been altered by Statute. However, this is the sort of thing which upsets people and worries them, and which worries Mr. Gallant.

I take secondly the experience of Mr. Eppy, who had a nice view at one time, but who arose one morning to find that immediately in front of his drawing-room window an enormous telephone pole had been placed by the Post Office. He, of course, was not consulted about it, or anything like that. Why should he have been? He had the temerity to complain, and was told that for technical reasons the pole had to be in that position.

I do not know what the technical reasons are. It is a very easy answer for the Post Office to get away with. All I can say, from my experience as a humble signals officer of a battalion in the war, is that it did not make any difference where the pole was put provided the wire did not drag on the ground. This unfortunate man objected to the pole being put where it was because is completely ruined the view from his house. From a high level he received a quite polite answer, that it was necessary to put the pole where it was for technical reasons.

I mention that only because I want my hon. Friend to consider the feeling that is going on about his Department in my constituency and, it may be, that is going on throughout the whole country. I know that as a supporter of the Government I


have never had a very high regard for the efficiency of the Post Office, in particular the telephone service. I certainly have not had, if I have wanted to put a call through in a hurry.

I give this warning here tonight as one humble back bencher, that if my hon. Friend goes to Dispatch Box and tells this House that in present circumstances, with efficiency as it is at the moment—and we look for better things—telephone charges and the charges for postal services are to be increased, thereby creating further inflation, there will not only be a very strong protest in the House, but it will reverberate throughout the country. Thank goodness one has this opportunity here tonight, in view of what one saw in the Press this morning. However, I give that warning, and although I may be only a solitary back bencher, I know that I shall be supported to a man by every member of my association, and I would ask my hon. Friend to take heed of it.

In the matter of inflation and increased expenditure on the nationalised industries and Government services, the people of this country, quite frankly, have had about enough. They will not stand for much more. I hope accordingly that the Government and the Front Bench will take note.

I end with a few words about the postal services in my division. They are just about as bad as the telephone service, I am sorry to say, but on this occasion it is not lack of equipment. Not at all. This is real lack of organisation and here, of course, "technical difficulties" again intervene. Time and again it is taking three or four days for a postal packet posted in one half of my constituency, which is only about six or seven miles across, to reach the other half. The reason is the difficulty of dividing up the various postal districts.

I can give a personal example. Exactly a month ago I had occasion to post a very important letter indeed to my agent. It so happened that I was going near Watford, which adjoins my constituency, not on a political mission but on a purely social venture. I kept that letter in my pocket until I was within a mile of the place, because I was hopeful that if I posted that letter as near as that on the morning of Sunday it might get there by Monday evening. It has not arrived yet.

A letter was posted at Northwood Hill sub-post office on a Saturday. I raised in the House two and a half years ago the need for a Crown post office at Northwood and that post office has not been provided yet. The letter posted at Northwood Hill reached Eastcote the following Tuesday, yet one could almost throw a cricket ball from the one place to the other. That kind of delay happens over and over again, for the reason that there is an unfortunate division of the Eastcote ward into two areas for delivery purposes.

There has been agitation again and again that Eastcote, which lies between two delivery areas should have a separate postal address, namely Eastcote, because in all there are 47,000 to 50,000 dwellings in Eastcote itself. It is about time that in a district which is only sixteen or seventeen miles from London it should be possible by now to post a letter with a feeling of optimism that it may arrive two or three miles away within a matter of forty-eight hours.

I stress that, because my hon. Friend will see that if postal charges are to be increased, my constituents, who are faced with these difficulties, somewhat naturally will not only begin to wonder why but will ask me why, and I do not wish within the next week or so to have about 500 letters, which I know I shall have if my hon. Friend says that charges are to be increased.

Mr. Raymond Gower: The letters will not reach my hon. Friend.

Mr. Crowder: Not until after the Recess.
I have been critical, not only because I have good reason to say how things could be improved but because that generally is the feeling of my constituents. I have constantly brought these matters, in correspondence and once previously on the Adjournment, to the notice of my hon. Friend. I emphasise that he has always looked most conscientiously into every problem that I have brought to him and always has been most prompt and courteous in his replies. We thank him for all he has done to improve the position hut, unfortunately, much still remains to be done, and I wish all strength to his arm in his efforts to improve conditions in the future.

9.55 p.m.

Mr. Edward Short (Newcastle-upon- Tyne, Central): I apologise for inter- vening in this debate, and I shall do so for only one or two minutes. The hon. Member for Ruislip—Northwood (Mr. F. T. Crowder) has been talking about shared telephones. I want to talk about shared wavelengths. I apologise for coming into this debate, but I warned the hon. Gentleman the Assistant Post- master-General that I would use every constitutional means open to me to bring this matter before the House of Commons whenever I could.
As the House is aware by now, the north-east of England shares a regional wavelength with Northern Ireland. These two areas are hundreds of miles apart and have an entirely different local culture. I suggest, therefore, that the regional programme should be a vehicle for putting across the local culture.
I am sorry that the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) is not here, because I want it put on the record for her benefit that this arrangement was decided by the Care- taker Government in 1945 and put into operation by them and not by the Labour Government. For the past twelve years, therefore, only the north-east of England and Northern Ireland have had to share a wavelength. No other region in the whole of the British Isles has had to do so. My colleagues and I have raised this matter in the House over and over and over again. We shall continue to raise it over and over and over again until something is done about it.
As I said to you, Mr. Speaker, some time ago when I asked your advice on this matter, one of the ancient functions of Parliament is to redress grievances, and the north-east of England, where there are 500,000 wireless licences, has a tremendous sense of grievance about this. The hon. Member for Ruislip- Northwood, who spoke so eloquently, referred to the bad feeling in his area about the Post Office. Let me assure him that it is nothing compared with the bad feeling about the B.B.C. in the north-east of England. We invited the Postmaster-General to come up and sample public opinion about this, but so far he has not come.
We believe, and we have watched this carefully, that no real attempt has been

made by the Postmaster-General or by the B.B.C. to solve this problem. When I spoke last time in an Adjournment debate I described to the House in detail a great insult which had been meted out to the North-East by the B.B.C. The hon. Gentleman will remember the incident, where we were having a memorial programme for a very beloved local conductor of the Felling Male Voice Choir and it was cut off in the middle to make way for a Northern Ireland short story.
The only result of my protest has been that we have had another insult meted out to us by the B.B.C. Three or four weeks' ago a new bishop was enthroned in Newcastle, the Rev. Hugh Ashdown. Naturally we expected that the enthroning service, a very ancient, lovely service, would be broadcast so that all the Anglicans in the north-east of England could listen. Imagine our dismay when we discovered that it was only to be broadcast on V.H.F. and not on the regional wavelength.
I can assure the Assistant Postmaster-General that this has intensified the feeling in the North-East about the poor deal we get from the B.B.C. I assure him also that we shall not regard V.H.F. as a solution of our problem. When people buy a wireless set they expect it to last for 12, 15 or 20 years, and it is unreasonable to expect half a million people in the north-east of England to throw away their wireless sets and buy V.H.F. or to pay £20 to £25 to get them converted. That is unreasonable, and therefore we do not accept the V.H.F. station as a solution.
We believe that the man directly responsible is the Director-General of the B.B.C. We have asked questions of him and, unless he does something to bestir himself, we shall be forced in the near future to put down a Motion on the Order Paper. But the Minister also has a Ministerial responsibility in this matter, and we expect him to do something about it. We know all about the technical difficulties. We have had them described to us over and over again. We do not agree that these difficulties are insuperable. Surely it is not beyond the wit and ingenuity of a nation which can make the hydrogen bomb and develop radar to overcome this minor technical difficulty—

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. E. Wakefield.]

Mr. Short: I am sorry to have had to intervene, and I apologise to the hon. Member whose Adjournment Motion this was—but I warned the House that I would do so, and I warned the Assistant Postmaster-General. We shall go on raising the matter until he does something about it.

10.1 p.m.

Mr. Raymond Gower: I am grateful for the opportunity to add a few words to the general complaints made by my hon. Friend. He has uttered to my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General some salutary warnings about the monopoly services administered by my hon. Friend's Department. If the Post Office continues to put up its charges for what we consider to be deteriorating services, it may be that it will encounter the sort of consumer resistance which the London Transport Executive has encountered in regard to some of its services.
At present, there is little doubt that the country as a whole is obtaining from the Post Office a poorer service at a greater cost. We all recognise that to be true of most parts of the country. In South Wales, where I live and where my constituency is situated, we have fewer postal deliveries than we used to have. We do not say that the Post Office should not study every possible way of simplifying its services, but that is one example of the reduced service now provided. I can underline what my hon. Friend has said about the poorness of the deliveries. If I wish to be sure that a letter posted in London will arrive in Cardiff on a certain day I now have to post it very much earlier than I did a few years ago.
We are a very long way from the time when Sir Rowland Hill introduced the penny postage but we may well find a repetition of the story of the young woman who communicated with her fiancé by putting a message, consisting of some symbol, on the outside of the envelope addressed to him, which he then rejected after having noted the symbol. That subterfuge may again have to be

practised by the poorer persons who receive letters if postal charges continue to be increased.
In one respect only does it seem to me that the Post Office is turning on the heat, and that is in respect of its shared telephone service, to which my hon. Friend has referred. I have had one example of this just outside the City of Cardiff, concerning two villages which fall within the area of my constituency—St. Nicholas and Peterston-super-Ely. I was told that it was necessary for my constituent, a Mr. Davies, in St. Nicholas, to accept for the first time a shared service instead of his own service, which he had previously enjoyed, in order to enable another constituent of mine—a Mrs. Davis, at Peterston-super-Ely—to enjoy a telephone service.
That request seemed reasonable if, as seemed probable, there were long waiting lists in both villages. I then took the precaution of putting down a Question in order to ascertain how many people there were on the waiting lists of Peterston-super-Ely and St. Nicholas respectively. To my astonishment I found that there was a very short waiting list in each village. In the light of what my hon. Friend said it means that rather than this being a matter of necessity, owing to long waiting lists, it was due to the strange policy outlined by the official —who had been named to my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. F. P. Crowder)—who explained how successful it had been.
As to charges my hon. Friend has had his warning tonight. Therefore, he and his right hon. Friend are in a better position than the Chairman of the National Coal Board, who has already arrived at his decision. They have the opportunity to study what can be done to improve the efficiency of the organisation whose' destinies they supervise. They have a monopoly service. They have no rivals. It is therefore incumbent upon them to look at all these problems again, in connection both with the need for more efficiency and the charges which they make for the services they render. I hope that my hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend will take to heart what has been said so forcibly by my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood and supported, albeit inadequately, by myself and others.

10.6 p.m.

Mr. George Thomas: I am grateful to the Minister for not rising just for the moment. I am surprised that neither Government supporter who spoke found it possible to say a word for those who make the Post Office services. We have the best Post Office service in the world, and I have always been proud of it. The hon. Member for Ruislip—Northwood (Mr. F. P. Crowder) seems to be surrounded with incompetents. He has not found it possible to discover anyone in the Post Office service in his constituency to whom he can say, "Well done." It is only due to those who earn their living in the postal service that we should say a good word on their behalf.

Mr. F. P. Crowder: rose—

Mr. Thomas: No, I will not give way.

Mr. Crowder: On a point of order. I did not refer to the workers who are actually trying to work the Post Office within my constituency. They do it most—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is not a point of order. The only point of order is that unless the hon. Gentleman who has the Floor gives way another hon. Gentleman is not entitled to interrupt him.

Mr. Thomas: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I usually give way—but I realise that the Minister wants to reply. I want to take only two minutes. I have listened to a most devastating attack upon the Post Office. The hon. Member for Ruislip—Northwood surely does not want to whittle down the very serious charges he made of utter incompetence.

Mr. Crowder: Those who are trying to administer the Post Office in my constituency do so to the best of their ability and most efficiently. I am complaining about the direction by bureaucrats in Whitehall.

Mr. Thomas: It is possible for me to post a letter in 'this House at 8 o'clock at night and for the letter to be delivered by the first post in Cardiff tomorrow morning. I do it regularly, and so do my hon. Friends. I am grateful for that service.
I find myself at one with the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) in warning the Minister that shared telephones are not here to stay with any comfort on

his part. The British people do not like this tapping-telephone system, especially when their neighbours can hear their business. They would rather the police heard their business than the neighbours. At least the police are sworn to secrecy. It is awful for neighbours to find out the state of our bank balance, or if there is going to be an increase in the family, and other private and confidential things spoken over the line, which can be whispered through the streets in a way which causes a lot of trouble. The Minister is doing no favour if he says that that is the Britain of the future.
I hope to goodness that the Daily Express is wrong once again—it will not be the first time—when it says that the Minister is about to increase telephone charges. That will be a direct inflationary step which is bound to cause the greatest havoc in our commerce and industry.

10.10 p.m.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Kenneth Thompson): I am sure the House will agree that the debate so far has not passed without every opportunity being taken either to criticise and condemn the Post Office, or to warn it of the dread fate which awaits it in certain eventualities. I propose as I go along to deal with one or two of the observations which have been made.
Let me first say to my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. F. P. Crowder), who initiated this debate, that the difficulties of his constituents have been a matter of concern to the Post Office for a long time. My right hon. Friend has gone into this matter repeatedly and, in the knowledge that this debate was to take place this evening, he has examined the whole matter again. I should like to assure the House that he will keep the whole subject under review to make quite sure that so far as is possible no failure on our part shall add to the difficulties of those who are now awaiting telephones. I should like to add in support of what my hon. Friend has said that no hon. Member could possibly be more diligent in pursuing the claims and interests of his constituents than my hon. Friend. A very large, voluminous and, I must say, interesting, correspondence has gone on between him and the various branches of the Post Office for a long time.
I am glad to have the opportunity of speaking about the sharing of telephones. It is a long while since the House had a discussion about it. I hope in the course of what I have to say to be able to put at rest some of the anxieties which toment my hon. Friend's constituents and apparently give no pleasure to the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas). Shared service is not something that the Post Office authorities have entered into with wild and joyous abandon, It is a device, a neighbourly device, to enable us to give telephone service of some kind to the greatest possible number of people who want telephone service. It was introduced in 1948, as is well within the recollection of most hon. Members in the House, in order to serve that specific purpose at a time when there was a very heavy demand for telephones and only limited resources of materials, manpower and technical and scientific skill available, to make the telephone service available widely to everyone. It is not something we have done because we liked doing it in preference to any other way of providing telephone service.
At present, I am bound to say I can see little prospect of its being abandoned in the immediate future. But I want the House to know that my right hon. Friend wants to get rid of compulsory telephone sharing as soon as it is possible to do so without limiting our capacity to extend telephone service as widely as possible to those who want to have it. Let me remind the House that every telephone, unlike the tapping on to a main water pipe, a gas pipe or electricity main, requires its own single pair of wires running all the way from the telephone within the house or office back to the exchange. That means an enormous and intricate network of wires and cables in each exchange area and involves the Post Office in enormous capital investment. If we can get two subscribers to share one of these pairs of wires from their respective homes to the telephone exchange, we are limiting the amount of capital and resources of all kinds that are called into use to give service to two people.
Since this service was introduced, in 1948, we have managed to arrange sharing between no fewer than 1,200,000 telephone users. I does not require the

exercise either of much ingenuity or, may I say, magnanimity, to see that this means 600,000 people are today in touch by telephone with the rest of the country who would not have been had it not been possible to use this device in the way we have used it. It has meant that we have been able to reduce the waiting list for telephones by just about that number. Half those people would still have been waiting today had they not been able to share in this way.
I should tell the House that, far from what my hon. Friend would have had the House believe, we get a very surprisingly small number of complaints or criticism of any kind from those who have once experienced how the shared telephone service works. It is true that many people do not like being called upon to share. Many people do not like the first approach made to them to ask them to give away the exclusiveness of their lines in order to let someone else use the same pair of lines. But so slight is the effect upon the ordinary domestic residential telephone subscriber of another user on the pair of lines that we very rarely indeed get any serious complaints about the use of telephones combined in that way.
So I say to those who may be called upon to share that their worse terrors are over when they have got over the shock of being asked to share. A telephone user's experience of a shared line is, in fact, usually a very happy and agreeable one. But we do not go about, as my hon. Friend would have had us believe, damnifying and villifying and outraging people to compel them to share their telephones.
The approach that is made to the subscriber who is asked to share, whether by someone with a military title to his name or not, is not quite as my hon. Friend would have the House believe. It does not suddenly happen that one day a lieutenant-colonel or a general writes a letter which finishes in the terms of the letter which my hon. Friend read to the House. It is true that the letter was sent and that it contained precisely those terms, but let us do justice, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff, West attempted very gallantly to do, to the officers of the Post Office who come to the point at which they have to send such letters.
This letter came at the end of a very long series of gentle, polite and courteous efforts to get this gentleman to honour an agreement that he had voluntarily entered into. It is not the case that a letter suddenly pings through his letterbox in those terms. An officer will call and ask the subscriber if he is willing to share. The subscriber quite often says, "No, of course not; I want my exclusive line and I hope that you will allow me to retain it." That is not unusual. He is reminded of the fact that others want telephone service and can only get it if subscribers are willing to share.
Again, he may not be willing to accept that position or that appeal and he must then be reminded that he got his telephone on the understanding that if the time came when someone else wanted a telephone and could have it only by sharing, he would be willing to share. All this process was gone through in the case to which my hon. Friend referred.
At what stage does either a Government Department or a private individual look to another private individual to stand by the terms of the agreement he has entered into? At what stage does somebody, in whatever terms one may care to use, make clear to the other party that he must do his duty, and that we have a duty to discharge which we cannot discharge while he avoids doing this?
The sentence that my hon. Friend read out is the ultimate sentence of what is, in fact, a very long and extremely well-worded letter describing in courteous and considerate terms the nature of the agreement involved and the purpose which the Post Office sought to serve in asking him to share a line. I fully endorse the terms of the letter sent by this officer of the Post Office and I would support him, if I were called upon to do so, if he had to send such a letter to another subscriber to the telephone service.
My hon. Friend asked how we worked out this system of priorities, and I agree that it may well be that there is in the minds of our friends, the would-be subscribers, some idea that they are not getting fair play and that some under-the-counter butcher's fiddle is going on. We do not like this job of having to keep rationed, under a system of priorities for

a lot of people, all of whom we should be very pleased and proud to number among our customers, a commodity which is in sort supply, but where a commodity is in short supply clearly we must do something on those lines.
Our telephone managers have a system of priorities which has been discussed and negotiated over a very long period and which, as far as we are able to judge, operates with a good deal of fairness, in so far as fairness is possible in an operation of this kind. There are exemptions from the requirement to share telephone lines, but these are only for judges of the High Court and Members of the two Houses of Parliament and are for reasons which it will not be difficult for hon. Members to follow.
We then come to the system of priorities, which I will describe very briefly. If any hon. Member is in any doubt about it, his area telephone manager will, I know, be very pleased to discuss it with him. The first priority goes, as the House would expect, to defence matters and to what we might call life-and-death interests, such as doctors, coastguards, midwives and fire services. The next priority is to export industries and industries of that kind with some degree of priority in their own right. The third priority is to farmers, who are often in remote areas and are themselves concerned, in their own way, with agricultural matters of life and death.
The fourth priority is to motoring associations, banks, Borstal institutions and
similar institutions. Political parties would come within this priority. I do not know whether all hon. Members agree that priority number four is the right place for political parties, but whether they should be higher or lower is a matter which we can debate on another occasion. It probably depends which political party.
Priority number five is for public kiosks, which can often serve the need of a lot of people who may all individually want telephones but who may be waiting for a main cable to be laid. Next come ordinary business applications, and after that ordinary residential applications.
It would not be wise, as I am sure my hon. Friend will agree on reflection, to publish the names in a public place either of those who are waiting—it is nobody


else's business but their own that they want a telephone—or of those who are getting telephones, for the degree of priority which may have entitled an individual to his telephone at the time at which he got it may itself be a matter of confidence for that individual, and it would not be right to reveal to the whole world what is in that sense the private personal business of the applicant.
I would add, however, that I have had the opportunity of examining a good many of these cases, many of them brought to our notice by hon. Members, and I have not yet found one in which I have any reason to be other than perfectly satisfied with the allocation of priority which was given by the telephone manager when he made the final allocation.
My hon. Friend referred to a good many matters in his most interesting speech, and clearly in the time at my disposal it is impossible for me to deal with them all. Let me invite him, when he has the leisure, to read the Post Office Commercial Accounts. They will remove from his mind the misapprehension about the way in which the Post Office acts as a tax-gathering Department on behalf of some other branch of the Government. We do, in fact, operate our organisation as a commercial undertaking of a very large size and of a very complex nature with what, I believe, to be a very high degree of efficiency, offering what is a very economical service to those who place their business in our hands. We have our ortcomings and make our mistakes, but it would not be a human organisation if that were not the case, and we do try to keep them down to a minimum.
I have dealt, I hope to my hon. Friend's satisfaction, with the particular case to which he has drawn attention. He referred to an estate where there was a good deal of feeling about the way in which the telephones had been supplied to the houses. The Post Office is not quite so foolish as the account of events which he gave to the House might lead the unbiased observer to believe. It so happens that the estate to which he refers is a crescent of houses. The Post Office was advised that these would he nice houses and that most people would want telephones.
We were glad to have the information in advance, and on the advice given to us we took the appropriate advance action. We began to prepare for the building of houses at one end of the are and expected that the people taking the houses there would want telephones. Instead of that, the builder began at the other end. We followed him, but before long we found that development was going on at both ends at the same time and in odd patches. It is because of that circumstance, as well as because of a purely Post Office hold up, that we had to give people varying times at which they would have their telephones.
I am sorry about the mail that did not arrive. We do not like to hear of failures on our own part, and we take very good care to track them down. If this letter, which has, apparently, been on its voyage for a month or more, has not yet arrived, I wonder if my hon. Friend would let me have a note about it, when I promise that we will investigate the matter to the best of our ability and give him an account of what happened. I only hope that he will not find that it is still lying in one of his pockets on the way to the Post Office.

Mr. F. P. Crowder: I can give my hon. Friend an absolute undertaking about that.

Mr. Thompson: We are willing to call together the head postmaster and the chamber of commerce in my hon. Friend's constituency in order to discuss the Ruislip postal problems, and to find a solution if we possibly can. The final solution, as I think he knows, will depend upon the building of a new sorting office which will be big enough and efficient enough to deal with all the items coming that way. As soon as we are able to find a suitable site—which is one of the present difficulties—and can make 'the allocation of capital for that purpose, we shall be only too pleased to provide this office, in order to simplify our own operations, and to satisfy the needs of our customers.
Attention has been drawn to the somewhat remarkable article which appeared in the Daily Express—I believe this morning. I am quite sure that, in spite of threats of what may be likely to happen in this House if such a thing as was forecast did happen, hon. Members will


not expect me either to follow the Daily Express or to anticipate anything that may be said by my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Short: Before the Minister sits down, does he not intend to say a word about the North-East? After all, he has still two minutes left.

Mr. Thompson: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I would be very pleased indeed to follow up the point raised by the hon. Gentleman, by telling him that I have nothing to add to what I said when he raised it in an earlier debate.

Mr. Short: Will the Minister at least give some assurance that he will look into the lamentable incident of the

failure to broadcast the enthronement of our own bishop on a wavelength on which our people could listen?

Mr. Thompson: If the hon. Member, or any of those who share his feelings—which I well understand—will draw my attention to it, I will willingly look into it, but I must remind him that, as far as I know, this is the first time that this subject has been brought to the attention of a Post Office Minister. It will have most careful investigation once we have an opportunity to look into it, but obviously I cannot say anything about it this evening.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.